Cold Comfort
by Malboro-Pearls
Summary: Edward's been hurt too many times by those he loves so when a dazzling blonde walks into his life, he's wary of his feelings. Can Jasper, with his own issues, break down the walls Edward's put up and restore is faith in love and himself?
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**You might get the idea that I like FBIward, what with my other story. And you'd be right. Just something about him in a suit with a badge and gun.**_

_**You understand. I know you do.**_

_**Anyways, enjoy.**_

_**Edward**_

_Fucking stupid, goddamn asshole! _I fumed at myself as I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

The men's restroom at work was not really the best place to have a minor breakdown but I just had to get away from his snarky, holier-than-thou attitude.

What the hell was he doing here?

How the hell did he get _in_ here?

Hadn't he put me through enough crap over the last three months? Wasn't breaking my heart and trust bad enough? He had to come in here with his little fuck buddy, didn't he?

Of course he did, because he had to rub it in how above everyone he thought he was better than. Guess having a senator for a daddy inflated ones ego somewhat.

"Fuck him." I jumped, turning to see Jake, my best friend and colleague standing by the door, watching me carefully. Jake was the only one who knew how much Sam's betrayal hurt me. He was the only one who knew how deep the cuts went. "You're better than him, Ed." Let it be known that he is the only one allowed to call me that. Ever. "That asshole made the biggest mistake of his life when he fucked around on you and he'll realise that soon enough. And I hope that you shoot him in the balls before you kick him out the goddamn door."

Meet Jake – the Master of Tact.

Okay, maybe not.

"If you say so." I sighed, cupping some water and washing my face quickly before grabbing some paper towels before drying my face off. "I just don't want to see him again. If anything I think I'll run in the other direction before I do anything else."

"The fuck you will." He practically growled and I raised an eyebrow at him. "You've done fuck all wrong, Ed. You should be walking around with your head held high, taking no shit from anyone. You've done nothing wrong."

"No, I'm just the pathetic shit who gets his ass cheated on. In his own fucking apartment, no less." I grumbled, throwing the paper towel in the trash and running my hands through my hair. "What the hell is he even doing here? He doesn't work or live anywhere near here. What the fuck is he doing here?"

"He's here because he knows it'll fuck with you head." Jake said simply and I knew he was right. Sam was exactly the kind of person to decide to drop by to fuck with someone's head. He was a narcissistic asshole who seemed to thrive on the misery of those around him. What got me was the fact that I didn't see it until I walked into my apartment after wrapping up early at work to find him fucking some trick over the back of my sofa.

When I'd recovered from the shock, I'd demanded to know what the fuck was going on and he'd just said that he didn't want to take him back to his place.

I had seen red and before I knew what was happening, my fist was connecting with his nose and I was screaming at them to get out, practically throwing him and the twink out into the corridor with their pants around their ankles.

It gave me a bit of satisfaction to hear the twink shouting at Sam as I leaned against the door. Apparently, he hadn't known of my existence either.

Sam had hung around for about half an hour afterwards, trying to get me to open the door.

Wasn't happening.

He didn't stop until one of my neighbours – my guess was Shelley Cope – threatened to call the cops if he didn't shut the hell up – her words, not mine.

I didn't allow myself to break down until I knew that he was gone. Shelley seemed to know that I wouldn't be up for company so she didn't try to talk to me but she did slip a note under my door saying that if and when I needed to talk, she would be there to listen.

I remembered calling Jake, telling him to come over and he did, like I had known he would. When I told him what had happened he wanted to find him and rip his balls off.

I managed to persuade him that that wasn't the best idea he'd ever had.

I did get rid of that sofa and change the locks on my door, though.

"I just want him out of my life." I sighed, looking over at him.

He gave me a sad smile, shaking his head. "He knows that and that's why he's hanging around."

"I just don't get it." I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes.

"Come on, open your eyes, Eddie." Jake walked over to me and leaned against the wall as well. I knew he was speaking in the metaphorical so I kept my eyes closed. "You do this every day. You deal with assholes like him every day. You really can't see it, can you?" I shook my head, not even trying to figure out what he was on about. Jake might be one of the best profilers in the unit but he was an ass when it came to riddles and giving out information. "It's because _you_ dumped _him!"_

Now, that got my attention. "Huh?"

"Classic narcissist behaviour." He shrugged. "Sam's always been the centre of his own little universe and his parents gave him whatever the fuck he wanted, right?" I nodded, seeing where he was going with this. "My guess is he wanted to be the centre of _your_ universe as well and know that he could get away with anything. After you chucked him out on his ass, he obviously realised that that was not the case. And I'm guessing it pissed him off and he's going to try whatever he can to get back into your good graces so he can feel in control again."

"What? He wants to get back together so he can dump me?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "That's a bit farfetched, don't you think?"

"Well, it could be." He shrugged again and I had to admit, I wouldn't put it past Sam to think that way.

"Hey, guys," we turned to see Garrett holding the door open. "We've got a case."

I sighed, not wanting to see Sam again but knowing I couldn't hide out, especially if we had a case.

Jake looked at me and I nodded, following Garrett out into the bullpen, crossing to the meeting room. I knew Sam was still here, I could feel his eyes on me as I sat down.

I hated it.

"Now, in the wake of James' leaving us last week, we have a new agent joining us from the Houston office. He should be here momentarily. In the meantime, let's get started." Garrett sat down and all of us picked up the case files that Tanya had given us.

"A series of home invasions in San Diego, all family members apart from the youngest child were killed." I let out a breath, hating dealing with home invasions. There was just something so brutal about breaking into someone's home, where they're supposed to feel safe and secure and taking their lives. "All the wives were sexually assaulted."

I looked up at the screen where images of the victims were flicking into place.

We all turned to the door as it opened and a blonde man stepped into the room.

"Ah, everyone this is Special Agent Jasper Hale, the latest addition to the BAU." Garrett gestured for him to sit down next to Victoria as he introduced us all. "Jasper, I hope you understand we don't really have time to do the whole the whole 'get to know the new guy' thing but I'm sure, you'll get to know everyone as time goes by."

"Wouldn't want to hold up a brief." He held up a hand, indicating he didn't want anything to stop because of him. "I will apologise for being late though. I think that with all the paperwork they've had me doing this morning, I think I'm personally responsible for the deaths of six trees." We all chuckled and I looked over at him properly.

His skin was a light tan in colour, which made sense seeing as Garrett had mentioned he had transferred from Houston. His light blonde hair fell in waves around his face, framing his jaw. The lighter highlights in his hair gave it that sun-kissed look. I could feel myself getting hard as I watched him settle into his seat and I forced myself to look down at the file in front of me, feeling my hard-on deflate instantly.

"Any similarities in victimology?" I asked, looking back over at Tanya.

"Not that the police could find." She shook her head, looking down at the file in her hand. "The Russell's were white, middle class, the Smith's lived on the other side of town, barely scraping by and the Mansen's were black, upper class, very well off."

"What makes them think it's the same guy?" Jake asked and she turned, bringing up close ups of some of the crime scene photos on the screen.

"The M.O. is the same. Father, single stab wound to the throat, mother multiple stab wounds to the throat and torso."

"Overkill on the mother." I observed and the others nodded. "What about the children?"

"All the children apart from the youngest in each family were killed with a single gunshot wound to the head. There weren't any shots heard by the neighbours, so the local PD assume he must have used some kind of silencer."

"Who found them?" Victoria asked, flipping through her file.

"The Mansen's maid found them when she arrived for work the next morning." Tanya sat down in her usual seat across from me, resting her arms across the table. "Mrs. Smith's sister came by to pick her up for work and the Russell's carpooled. The mother of one of her daughter's friends went to pick her up the next morning and found the door open. She called out for them but when she didn't get an answer, she called the police right away."

"It says here that the parents were bound with wire." Jake raised an eyebrow, clearly wondering what that was about.

"ME's report says that it was done post mortem. They're not sure why he does that. I think they realised it's slightly out of their league so they called us in."

"Right, we'll go through more on the jet. Jasper, I assume you were advised to have a go-bag ready." Jasper nodded, looking slightly perplexed at the mention of the jet. I couldn't help the small smile at his expression. "Right, wheels up in thirty."

We all grabbed the files and made our way out to the bullpen and to our desks, gathering what we needed before grabbing our go bags and making our way out of the building. I was relieved to see that Sam was no longer hanging around, apparently not having had the reaction he wanted. Either that or he was told to leave because he had nothing to be here about.

Either way, I didn't care. As long as he was gone, I didn't care.

"I saw you, ya know." Jake muttered as we walked and I raised an eyebrow at him.

"What?"

"I saw the way you looked at him." He raised an eyebrow, smirking at me. "Come on, Ed. I might be straight and love my wife to bits but even I can admit that he's hot."

"Alright." I conceded, unable to argue with him on that one. "Yes, he's hot but it can't happen."

"Please, if it's because you work together, supervisors wouldn't notice if they walked in on you fucking on their desks and if it's because of Sam, fuck him. He's an ass."

"He betrayed me, Jake." I whispered and he stopped. I looked down at the ground, wanting to take back my words. "I know he's an asshole and everything that's running through your head right now but . . . he betrayed me, Jake. I mean, it's not like I was in love with him or anything-"

"Thank God."

"But it still hurts, you know?" I chose to ignore Jake's jibe. "And I can't stop thinking about how many others there might have been or probably were. It's just going to take me a while to get over that."

"I know, man." He said quietly, placing a hand on my shoulder. "But you know what they say the best way to get over someone is, don't you?" I raised an eyebrow, not sure if I wanted to know what was going through his head. "You wanna get over someone, get under someone else." He laughed as I glared at him.

I rolled my eyes at him as he boarded the jet. Part of me wondered why I kept him around but I knew that Jake was a friend I would never find again. Yeah, he might be completely inappropriate and a complete ass at times but he was like a brother to me. I had a lot more contact and affection from Jake and his family than I did with my own.

We stowed our go bags and made ourselves comfortable as the others piled onto the jet. Jake crossed his ankles on my lap, grinning and I narrowed my eyes at him as I shoved his feet off me, pushing her legs so he fell off the seat as I laughed.

"Alright, children, we ready to go?" Everyone murmured their agreement and I noticed Jasper's expression as he took in the jet.

"Beats commercial flights, huh?" I smirked and he nodded.

We all settled down and strapped in as we took off. I always felt peaceful at the beginning of the flight before we went back to the case at hand. We had a long flight so there was a little more time to sit and stare out the window.

"Do you reckon we'll actually get to go to Cali and see any of it properly?" Jake asked and I snorted.

"Don't be stupid." I looked over at him and chuckled lightly. "We only get to see those places because work takes us there." He nodded, looking back out the window.

"Thinking of taking some vacation time soon." He murmured and I nodded.

Some vacation time might be good for Jake. He rarely got to spend any time with his family. His wife, Bella was expecting their second child and he hadn't been as available for her as he wanted to be. Their little girl, Leah, was an absolute doll. She had everyone she met wrapped around her little finger.

And she knew it.

She's taken after both of her parents with her dark hair and eyes, her skin slightly lighter than Jake's with Bella's pale skin contributing to their daughter's complexion.

She was a gorgeous little girl and the little squirt knew it.

"Where you thinking of going?" I asked and he shrugged, making a non committal noise. "Really thought it through, huh?" I laughed and he glared at me. "I'm messing man, I think some time away from this would be good for you."

"Speak for yourself." He snorted and I raised an eyebrow at him, confused. "You take even less vacation time than I do."

"But I don't have a family like you do." I argued and he rolled his eyes at my words.

"Why don't you take some time to go and see your folks back home?" He pressed and it was my turn to roll my eyes. "You haven't seen them in three years, Ed."

"Yeah, well, it works both ways." I muttered and he backed off. He knew better than to push me when it came to my parents. He knew _why_ I hadn't spoken to them in so long so he should have known not to even bring them up.

"Even so, you need a break." He shrugged and I looked back out the window.

"I'm fine." I mumbled and he huffed. I knew he didn't buy it but part of me didn't care. I didn't have anyone to go home to a the end of the day. I didn't have any reason to be home for anything more than sleeping and storing my stuff. I didn't really have any friends outside of the team so I didn't do much socialising.

"Alright." I started as Garrett's voice filled the jet and our Technical Analyst, Bree appeared on a small screen in front of us.

"Alrighty, chickadees, I have cross-referenced everything I could think of, I'm talking work acquaintances, school friends, bars, drycleaners, mechanics. Zippo. Nothing. What I can tell you though is that each of the women had a delivery of yellow carnations, cypress and black roses. Now I googled them and all of them in some way represent death and disdain. And before you ask, because I know you are about to, all three orders were paid for in cash."

"Sending them flowers?" Victoria asked, looking as perplexed as the rest of us. "He's spent time watching them. He knows where they work, where they live, their names."

"He's stalking them but there's such a short time between the attacks." I ran my hand through my hair, biting my bottom lip.

"Maybe he's not stalking them in the traditional sense." We all looked towards Jasper, who was reading through the file in his hand in deep concentration. It looked as though he hadn't meant to saw that out loud. He looked up at us before looking back at the file. "In white collar I've seen people find things about each other in quite creative ways. A stalker is someone following another person to an obsessive level, right?" We all nodded. "Well, there are more ways to do that than standing in the bushes of someone's house or following them to work. I mean, social networking sites have just made it easier for people to gather other people's personal information."

"Oh, cyberstalking!" Why did Bree sound so excited by that idea? Must be a hacker thing. "I'll get right on that." The screen went blank and everyone was probably as stunned as I was as we stared at the screen.

"Alrighty then."

"Alright, we'll be landing in about half an hour. Victoria, Jake, you two head to the last crime scene and the rest of us will convene with the local PD." We all nodded, knowing what we needed to do as soon as we touched down.

There were Bureau regulation black SUV's waiting for us as usual and we split up. Somehow I ended up in a car with Jasper.

How the hell had that happened?

"So what brought you to the BAU?" I asked, knowing that with how closely we would be working together, we couldn't afford to be awkward.

"I needed a change and the BAU is a unit I've been interested in for a while now. It provides exactly what I need." He gave me a small smile that I caught out of the corner of my eye as I drove. His answer had been vague but I couldn't blame him. I probably would have been the same way with someone I didn't know.

"Still, going from white collar to chasing serial killers is a big change. Sure you can handle it?" I smirked and he chuckled gently.

"Time will tell, I guess." I could feel his eyes on me and it made me slightly uncomfortable. I kept my body language relaxed as I could as I turned into the parking lot of the San Diego police department. "What about you?"

I smirked slightly, parking in next to where Garrett and Tanya were parking. "Evil only prevails when good men do nothing." I looked at him and he nodded, understanding. "Edmund Burke had the right idea."

We climbed out of the car and met up with Tanya and Garrett before turning to walk into the police station. I let out a breath and cleared my mind of everything happening outside of the building we were walking into. I didn't like distractions while I was working on a case.

Here we go.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

**_Let me know what you think._**

**_It's different to 'A Thin Line' but I hope you enjoy._**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Edward**_

When we walked into the police department, Garrett and Tanya walked over to the chief while I made my way over to the white board they had displayed with all of the crime scene photos. I could see what had happened to all of the families and I hated thinking that so many lives had been lost and what would happen to the children left behind. Especially those that didn't have any family. I hoped they all did.

"Sorry, we all tend to get tunnel vision." I could hear Garrett and Tanya talking to the police chief, getting caught up with everything the local PD knew about the case.

"Horrific, huh?" I looked to my left to see a local officer looking over the photos in front of me. He had a look of sadness on his face and I knew exactly how he was feeling. He didn't want to do this either. "It's such a waste."

"That's why we're here. To make sure it doesn't happen again." I said softly, turning back to where Garrett and Tanya were standing.

"Well, our other two agents have gone to last crime scene, they'll try and get what they can from there. Do you have somewhere we can set up?" Garrett asked and the chief turned and pointed towards a room just off the main room. "Thank you."

"What else do we know?" I asked as we walked.

"All we really know is that they break in through the back door but there's no prints or DNA present so we've got nothing to run through the system."

"He's organised." I said softly, placing my bag on the table, booting up the computer they had allowed us to use. Anything more we could get on this case would be better than what we already had. "Any idea what order they were killed in?"

"From what we can guess, the father was first. Clean through the carotid artery. Would have bled out quickly, he wouldn't have been able to put up a struggle. We counted numerous stab wounds on the mothers. Mrs. Russell: fifty-four, Mrs. Smith: forty-two and Mrs Mansen: forty-eight times. The majority are post mortem." He didn't look at the photographs as he spoke, obviously not wanting to see what had happened in his own backyard.

"With the mother it's personal." I observed, grabbing the files on the desk and looking through them. "With the father and children, it's almost like he wants to get rid of them as quickly as possible. Like they're in the way. His main focus is on the mother. I mean, single stab to the throat. It's quick. It's easy. Single gunshot wounds to the children. Again. Quick. Easy. But, he spends a significant amount of time with the mother. He rapes her, he cuts her throat and then proceeds to stab her at least forty times. It's something about the mother."

"But what about the child he leaves behind?" Jasper asked, stepping up next to me. I ran my hand through my hair. "I mean, why go through the house, killing everyone but leaving a witness?"

"Because they're too young to be a decent witness." I grabbed the pictures we had of the surviving children. I grabbed some pins, tacking the photos to the board. "Look, Josie Mansen, three years old, Henry Smith, eighteen months and Naomi Russell four months. That's why he feels safe leaving them alive. Because he knows there's no way that they'd be able to say or do anything to incriminate him." I looked at the photographs again. "The parents are missing their wedding rings."

"Dammit." Jasper bit down on his lip as the phone rang.

"You're on speaker, Bree." I answered the phone, placing it on the table in front of me.

"Right, I followed up on Jasper's hunch about cyberstalking and the Russell's and the Mansen's had internet connection and had their own social networking sites but both of them had as much security on their as possible and neither of them had any really personal information on there. The Smith's didn't have an internet connection. From what I can see from their financial record, they were only just managing to pay the bills. I'm still digging."

"Alright, get as much as you can." She hung up and we looked back up at the board again. There was a link between the three families, but we just couldn't see it yet. "So . . . we have three families, seeming unrelated in _any_ way apart from the fact that they were mutilated and killed by the same man in the same way." I let out a breath, biting my bottom lip. "They have to be connected in some way."

"We just need to find it." Garrett said softly, leaning on the table behind me. I took off my jacket, slinging it over the back of the chair and unbuttoning the top buttons on my shirt. "Right, let's start this off the same way we do any other. Coffee run?" I nodded, knowing that Garrett knew what I liked. "Jasper?"

"Uh, sure." He paused and Garrett chuckled.

"Don't worry about being embarrassed by what you drink. He has a double shot vanilla latte, so it can't be that bad." I rolled my eyes, hating the fact that they constantly picked on my drink.

"Okay, um, I'll have a double shot caramel mocha." He gave me a small smile and I couldn't help but chuckle.

Garrett walked out of the room quietly and I crossed my arms trying to make sense out of the mess that was on the board. "Finally, I'm not the only one that doesn't drink just black coffee."

"It's too bitter." He shivered dramatically and I chuckled as he shook his head. "It's too kind of . . ."

"Thick?"

"Yeah." He nodded, looking at me slightly surprised.

"That's why I get the drink I do. I get the double shot because it gives me the caffeine boost and the vanilla shot takes away the bitter taste." He nodded in agreement and I knew he was thinking the same thing. "No one else on the team gets that and they will take the piss out of you. I hope you realise that."

"Hell, I've got four brothers." He laughed and I raised an eyebrow, shaking my head slightly. "I think I can handle them."

"You asked for it. This team is more childish than you'd think." I laughed and he raised an eyebrow, clearly questioning. "Let's put it this way, Victoria likes making mini rockets and firing them off all around the BAU. Some days it's a good idea to wear a helmet." He laughed and I chuckled lightly. "I've been reamed on the head one too many times with those things."

"Alright, watch out for flying objects while at the office." He chuckled, taking off his jacket and laying across the back of another one of the chairs. "There's a connection here. There has to be."

"We'll find it." I looked at him and he turned to look at me. "We have to."

He nodded slowly, looking back at the board. He was looking a little overwhelmed and I didn't blame him. I remember how I felt when I first joined the BAU. And I wasn't dealing with a family annihilator.

Time will tell indeed.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I let out a breath, dropping the file on the desk in front of me before dropping my head into my hands. We'd been here for four hours and so had nothing. The Russell's and the Mansen's both had credit cards and debit cards but they didn't run in the same circles at all. The Mansen's lived an extremely high end lifestyle. They spared no expense on anything at all. The Russell's were middle class, well off but they didn't overspend. They had savings in place for their children to go to college. They lived within their means but they were still able to provide the best for their children. The Smith's on the other hand lived hand to mouth. They had trouble paying their bills. There was no chance of them saving anything for their children's future. Mr Smith worked two jobs, while Mrs Smith worked while her older child was in school and her sister watched her son. And still they were struggling.

"Alright, we're not going to get anywhere tonight." Garrett sighed and the rest of us let out some kind of groan or noncommittal noise. "Why don't we get to the hotel and start fresh tomorrow."

We all mumbled in agreement as we stood up and grabbed our things, blurry eyed and needing some rest. Climbing into the cars, the drive to the hotel we had booked was quick and quiet. Climbing out we saw that there were no vacancies left and I was glad that we had had them booked.

"Alright, they're low on rooms so we're having to share." Garrett said quickly and quietly. "Tanya, Victoria." He handed the two of them a key and turned to me, handing me another. "Edward, Jasper." I looked at him and he gave me a small smile. I picked up my bag and looked at the number on the keycard, following the door numbers down until I found the right room.

Opening the door, I flipped on the light seeing that there were two beds, one on either side of the room. I dumped my bag on one of the beds as Jasper ambled over to the other one, flopping down onto it, letting out a breath.

"This room seems to be stuck in the seventies." He mumbled and I chuckled, sitting down on my own bed. I looked around the room and saw that he was right. The prints and patterns in the carpet and on the lampshades screamed seventies. Part of me was so glad I missed that particular decade. He sat up, running his hands through his hair as he stretched out. He grabbed his bag and headed into the en suite as I lay back on the bed. I let my mind wander over the case as I waited for Jasper to emerge. There was something we were missing and it was something that should be screaming at us but for some reason, wasn't. Bree had contacted their telephone providers and would be receiving their phone records in the morning. Until then, we couldn't do anything more.

"Bathroom's yours." I looked up to see Jasper standing there in his sleep pants and a tank. I forced myself up and grabbed my go bag, making my way into the bathroom.

Closing the door, I dropped my bag on the floor and ran my hands through my hair. I pulled out my towel and turned on the shower, stripping off and climbing in. I sighed softly as the hot water ran across my muscles, ridding myself of the crap that had accumulated through the day. The physical of travelling and the psychological of going through the case.

I climbed out of the shower and towelled myself off, wrapping it around my waist as I grabbed my toiletries bag out on my go bag. I quickly brushed my teeth before changing and making my way back out into the main room, seeing that Jasper had turned out the main light but left the lamp on the stand by my bed on. I dropped my bag at the end of the bed and flopped down onto it.

"Mind if I turn out the light?" I asked and Jasper shook his head, looking as though he was already asleep. I smiled, reaching up and turning off the lamp by my bed.

I closed my eyes, clearing my mind of what had happened that day and turned onto my side, trying to get comfortable. Not easily done when the bed was tiny and the mattress harder than I was used to at home. Unfortunately, crappy beds was something we had to deal with on a regular basis in this job.

. . . . . . .

I was woken the next morning by the sunlight streaming in the window from the gap underneath the curtains. I rolled over, moaning gently as I pulled my pillow over my head, blocking out the light. I closed my eyes, groaning as my phone alarm decided it was going to go off in that moment. I hated technology and the need to wake up at a ridiculous time at times like these.

"Turn it off, please!" Jasper moaned and I chuckled gently, pulling the pillow off my head and rolling over, squinting my eyes as the sunlight assaulted me again. I leaned over and saw that it was seven thirty as I stopped the alarm on my phone. I dropped back, letting out a huff before sitting up and wandered over to my bag, grabbing some clothes before making my way towards the bathroom.

I sleepily went through my morning routine and got dressed before walking back out into the room to find Jasper sitting up, although it looked like he had fallen back to sleep. It wouldn't surprise me. He was used to the white collar schedule which was most likely nine to five most days.

"Wakey, wakey, man." I laughed, clapping him on the shoulder and he started, shaking his head, blinking furiously. "Come on, up and at 'em."

"Shut up." He grumbled and I laughed as he walked over to the bathroom, closing the door behind him. I would be lying if I said that the uncomfortable bed wasn't tempting in the least. I really wanted to climb back into bed and not come out for a week.

It didn't take long for us to get ready and meet the rest of the team. It was Jake's turn for the coffee run as the rest of us settled in at the station. The phone in the centre of the table rang and Garrett pressed the speaker, knowing it was Bree.

"Okay, listen to this, I managed to get all three of the families phone records and two days before they were killed they all received a phone call from the same number. Lasted roughly twenty seven minutes each and before you ask, I've run the number and it belongs to a company that runs phone consumer surveys."

"You got an address?" I asked, standing up and she giggled softly.

"Already on your phone."

"Edward, you and Jake head to that address, try and find out who was working when the calls were made. Contact us when you can get an ID." We nodded and made our way out of the building.

"So, anything happen last night?" Jake asked with a slight smirk and I raised an eyebrow, not taking my eyes off the road.

"What are you talking about?"

"With you and Jasper?" His tone implied that what he was talking about should be completely obvious to me. I, on the other hand, was still completely confused.

"We went to the room and went to bed. Woke up this morning and met you guys." I shrugged, wondering what the hell he was up to.

"You mean, nothing happened?" He sounded shocked and I rolled my eyes.

"What were you expecting Jake. We met yesterday. I don't know the guy and I don't even know if he's gay. Even if he is, nothing would have happened."

"Maybe not last night. But soon."

"Since when does your gaydar work?" I laughed and he glared at me. "Come on, you might be a good profiler but when it comes to figuring out if someone's gay or straight, you suck."

"Maybe. Alright, I bet you fifty bucks that he's gay." He challenged and I shook my head.

"I'm not betting on someone's sexuality, Jake." He was incorrigible. I knew that I needed to get what was running through his head out of there before he really got to scheming. Who knew what Jake was truly capable of when he set his mind to something? Well, in actual fact, I did. "This is it."

I pulled up outside a pretty nondescript office building, turning of the engine before we climbed out and walked into the building. We saw what floor the company we wanted was on and climbed into the elevator.

"You really reckon it's going to be this easy?" I looked over at Jake and he shrugged, clearly not knowing what to say. "I mean, up until this morning we had nothing and now we have this and it took five minutes for Bree to find it. It seems too easy."

"Sometimes things just work out that way. I'd prefer it to be easy than to be chasing this guy for weeks." Couldn't argue with him there. "Just think, if this is the right guy, we'll be able to wrap up early and get home early."

"Wishful thinking, huh." I chuckled as the elevator stopped and the doors opened. A girl that was looking down at her phone stepped forward, starting slightly as she realised there was someone standing in front of her. She paled slightly, clearly not expecting two suited men, one of whom resembled a house, to be standing in front of her. I gave her a smile as I stepped aside as I moved out of the elevator.

We walked up to the reception desk where a girl sat bored, tapping her nails on the desk in front of her. She saw us and sat up, a smile spreading across her face. "How can I help you?" She said softly, clearly trying to flirt with us. We both pulled our badges out and showed them to her. She looked shocked at the fact that there were two FBI agents standing in front of her and swallowed slightly.

"We need to speak to whoever is in charge." Jake said softly, yet leaving no room for her to deny his request. She nodded picking up the phone, calling through to an office elsewhere on the floor. She stated that there was someone here to see whoever it was on the other end of the phone, saying that it was urgent. For some reason she didn't say that it was the FBI and I wondered why.

"I didn't want to risk him deciding not to come and speak to you." She shrugged and I nodded, wondering why she would be thinking he would disappear. Maybe he just had a problem with law enforcement and she knew that. Whatever the reason, it didn't matter because he was walking down towards us.

"Hello, I'm Charles Greene, can I help you?" He stopped in front of us, a seemingly unremarkable man, thin, around five eight, looking like a scrawnier version of Clarke Kent. I somehow didn't think he could turn into Superman when he wanted to.

"Are you the man in charge here?" I asked and he nodded. We held up our badges again and he looked down at them, before looking up at us again, confused. "I'm SSA Cullen and this is SSA Black. We need to talk to you about one of your employees."

He nodded, leading up back towards his office and we followed him closely, foregoing the chairs as he closed the door. He gestured for us to sit down but we declined.

"Mr Greene we need to see records of everyone who was working on these dates." Jacob dropped a piece of paper on his desk.

"Is there something going on?" He asked, looking at the paper.

"Is there a way to track who made each phone call?" I asked, ignoring him and he blinked, clearly realising that he wouldn't be getting any answers until we have ours.

"Yes, each employee has their own individual login." He sat down and logged in to his computer. "I can see everything from here."

"Can you tell us who called these three houses?" I asked, dropping another piece of paper in front of him and he brought up a spreadsheet looking page and typed in the numbers on the page, making a note of the caller each time.

"Each call was made by a Stefan Michaels." I grabbed my phone, speed-dialling Bree who picked up almost immediately.

"He in today?" He shook his head, stating that he wasn't booked in for the next two days. "Hey, I need an address for a Stefan Michaels."

"Stefan Michaels, hang on one second." I could hear her fingers tapping the keys on her keyboard while I waited. "228 Richmond Avenue."

"Richmond Avenue." Jake nodded, repeating the address into his own phone, closing it and stepping away. "Cheers, Bree."

We quickly made our way out of the office and into the elevator, letting out a sigh of relief that we might just have a viable suspect, if not the actual guy. Or at least his address.

"You're right. It feels too easy but, you never know. We might just be able to wrap this one up in record time." Jake smirked and I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. I was hoping that he was right.

We climbed into our SUV and I turned out onto the road as Jake plugged the address into the GPS. It wasn't too far away from where we were now but it would still take us a few minutes to get there. The phone rang and Jake answered it, speaking to whoever was on the other end. From the tone, I was guessing it was either Garrett or Tanya.

"They got him. He heard the cars pull up and tried to make a break for it out the back. Apparently, the new guy can move." He smirked at me, looking at me out of the corner of his eye as I turned the car around to head to the station. "According to Tanya, he's about as fast as you. Maybe we should put that to the test."

"I will never understand your affinity for gambling." I chuckled, shaking my head.

"Just because I always win." I had to snort at that. The only reason he won was the fact that I never actually obliged when he mentioned a wager. I didn't see the point is gambling. It did nothing for me.

We pulled into the station, seeing the other two SUVs and the police cruiser pull in just after me. We climbed out and waited for them all to join us. Stefan Michaels decided that he was going to put up a fight and struggled with the officer that led him into the station. We waited for the rest of the team to catch up to us before we followed them into the station.

"I heard you managed to catch him." I looked at Jasper and saw him turn slightly pink at my words. "That's a good thing, man."

"Well, who knew that running track in high school would come in handy someday." He chuckled and I laughed, following Garrett down to the interrogation rooms. "What can I say? Fastest two hundred metre in Houston, three years running."

"Only three?"

"Freshman weren't allowed to join the track team." He shrugged, standing beside me as we stood there and watched Victoria in the room with Stefan Michaels.

"He's in for a rough ride." I laughed, looking at Garrett who nodded.

Victoria looked like fire and she had a personality and tenacity to match. She could scare the hell out of anyone she wanted to and I wasn't ashamed to say that I'd been in fear of losing my balls once or twice because of a misjudged comment. She was one I was not going to cross even though I had a gun.

They were in there for god knows how long with Victoria needling away at him before he slipped up. We all perked up at his words. He had maintained that he hadn't spoken to any of the victims on the phone but he had just mentioned one of Mrs Russell's answers on the survey. It delved into areas like work and home life and with the telephone number available finding the address was easy for someone who knew how.

It didn't take long for him to break after that. He had been bounced around from foster home to foster home until his last set of foster parents decided to adopt him. Two years after he had been adopted, a burglary gone wrong left his adoptive parents, and adoptive brother and sister dead. The only reason he'd survived was because he'd hidden underneath the window seat he kept his toys in.

And something had happened for him to start attacking other families in the same way.

And his job let him into their homes, even if they didn't realise it.

I shook my head, walking outside, taking a lungful of air as I watched the sun start to set. Apparently, it had been longer than we'd thought since we brought him in. We all tended to lose track of time when on a case. I remembered staying up until four am once without even realising it.

"That's why I never answer the phone when I don't know the number." I turned to see Jasper standing next to me, looking weary.

"I know what you mean. I figure if it's that important, they'll leave a message or call my cell. And again if it's important when I don't answer my cell, they'll leave a message." He nodded in agreement and we both stood there in a comfortable silence.

"We're going to be heading out at first light apparently." He said softly and I nodded, knowing that that was probably the best idea. "Looks like we're bunkies again." He laughed and I couldn't help but smile.

We waited for the rest of the team before heading back to the hotel. Jake stood there and wiggled his eyebrows at me before winking and I glared at him, wanting to physically hurt him at that point. He was an asshole.

"Is it always this . . . eventful?" Jasper asked as he walked back into the room.

"Pretty much, yeah." I chuckled and he shook his head. "This job'll take it out of you, won't it?" I nodded and he, like before, turned on the lamp beside my bed, stopping in front of me. "Is that why you close yourself off?" He asked softly and I looked up at him, confused.

"What?"

He lifted his hand and ran a finger gently down my cheek, a look of sadness on his face. "You can't go around all alone forever. Let someone in."

He'd known me for forty-eight hours and he was able to figure that out.

What the fuck?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Edward**_

I was confused for the entire flight back to Virginia. I hadn't been able to get Jasper's words from the previous night out of my head.

"_You can't go around all alone forever. Let someone in."_

What the fuck was all that about?

How the hell did he know that I had trouble trusting people?

I shook my head, trying to clear it but failing miserably. I knew that Jasper was watching me a couple of times on the flight home but I didn't look at him. I had a feeling that there was something about Jasper that could break me if I let him. He could be so much more dangerous than Sam was.

But he was right.

I couldn't keep everyone out forever.

But could I let him in?

. . . . . . .

Walking into my condo in D.C. I flicked on the lights and let out a breath. I dropped my go bag by the washing machine, intending to do it in the morning but I was so emotionally and mentally drained after having flown back to Virginia, filling out reports and closing the case completely and then the drive from Quantico to D.C. I really couldn't be fucked right now. I'd just empty out my go bag and have it ready to go in the morning, ready for when another case came up.

I couldn't help but think back to when I'd left the Bureau and walked into the parking lot, seeing Jasper standing there on the phone. It looked like he was having an intimate conversation with the person on the other end of the phone.

_I couldn't help but watch Jasper out of the corner of my eye as I made my way to my car. He was leaning against his car, his head cocked slightly to the side as he spoke on the phone. His posture was slightly stiff as he closed his eyes, a small smile on his face._

"_I'm sorry I wasn't there." A small smile appeared on his face. "I'll take you out tomorrow, alright. I'm sorry I missed the party but I had to work. You know I've just started in a new unit. I can't slack off." He paused and listened to the to other person talking. "I'll make it up to you but I've got to go right now. I love you, you know that, right?" He chuckled before hanging up the phone. I unlocked my car, placing my bag on the backseat before glancing at Jasper once more and climbing into the drivers' seat. He gave me a small wave as I pulled out and I tried not to grin like an idiot as I returned it._

_What the hell was he doing to me?_

_It was obvious that there was someone else in his life and I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed, if not a little jealous._

_What the fuck?_

I shook my head, trying to get rid of those thoughts as I walked over to the fridge and grabbed a beer. I cringed at the lack of food in the fridge before shaking my head and grabbing the phone. I knew that pizza wasn't the healthiest of meal but my lack of reserves or energy meant that cooking and going food shopping were out of the question.

After ordering my pizza, I flopped down on the sofa, grabbing the remote and turned the TV on, flicking through the channels but I couldn't focus on watching anything.

I was mildly interested in a documentary that was on regarding John Wayne Gacy but then I figured I probably knew more about him than the people making this documentary did and I saw all of this at work, there was no need to watch it while I was at home, so I turned it onto something different. Settling with the Big Bang Theory, I couldn't help but chuckle at the things they thought made sense.

The funny thing was that there were actually people like these four nerds in the world. I wondered if I'd ever meet anyone like them.

Part of me wanted to and part of me didn't.

I couldn't decide.

I grabbed myself another beer just as the buzzer rang. I placed it on the side next to the fridge before finding out who it was. It turned out it was the pizza guy so I grabbed my wallet after I buzzed him in, unlocking the door, just as I heard the elevator ding and the pizza delivery guy walked down the hallway.

I managed to stuff myself thoroughly with pizza and beer (typical bachelor food, I'm aware) and I crawled into bed, my head still thrumming with the words Jasper had practically whispered to me in the hotel room the night before.

Why couldn't I get his words out of my head?

Why did he affect me so much? I'd known him for two days and he'd managed to burrow himself into my psyche. How the fuck did he do that?

He was going to make a great profiler, that's for sure. I just didn't want him to use his particular skill set on me, whether he was aware he was doing it or not.

. . . . . . . . .

Waking up the next morning, I realised that I might have overindulged on the beer the night before. There was a slight thumping inside my head and I moaned as I rolled over, slowly opening my eyes and huffing slightly as I lay on my back, staring up at my ceiling.

I lay there for about fifteen minutes or so, working up the energy and the will to get out of bed before making the snap decision and quickly getting off the bed, pulling back the covers, exposing the mattress before I made my way into the bathroom. I switched on the shower, quickly relieving myself as I waited for the water to heat up.

After sticking my hand under the spray, I stripped and climbed underneath it, sticking my head under the spray. The hot water helped to alleviate the discomfort in my head and I feel a lot better as I stepped out of the shower, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around myself before brushing my teeth quickly and walking back into my bedroom.

I pressed a hand onto the middle of my mattress, feeling that it was cold before I made my bed and turned to get dressed. I pulled on some jeans and a long sleeved black t-shirt, layering it with a short sleeve white shirt. I grabbed my phone, wallet and keys and made my way out of my condo and down to the coffee shop on the corner.

I didn't have any particular direction as I left the coffee shop, my drink in hand. It was the beginning of May and it was quite warm out so I just wandered around with no real purpose for the day. I knew I'd probably get distracted by something in a shop window and spend forever in wherever it was.

I often found that if I went somewhere with a purpose, I always came back with everything under the sun _apart from_ what I'd originally go out to get. So I didn't really bother anymore. Unless it was something I really needed or groceries.

I ended up walking to Benjamin Banneker Park, coffee still in hand. I stopped, seeing a familiar blonde standing there with a Hispanic woman and a young boy, no older than thirteen, laughing and joking. He threw his arm around her shoulder and I saw the boy grin up at the two of them.

I couldn't help but feel slightly hurt and confused at that little display.

Jasper was one confusing individual.

I ran through the whole interaction between Jasper and myself the night before we left San Diego in my head. His actions towards me seemed to be personal, intimate even, yet looking at him now, he clearly had a family. The boy had his blonde curls with his mother's darker colouring. I couldn't see the colour of his eyes but it was apparent that he was Jasper's child.

I made my way back home, nothing but confusion running through my head as I tried to reconcile the Jasper I'd seen at work and the Jasper I'd just seen.

It wasn't something I could put together in my head.

But then again, he was a profiler. He was obviously good at putting on a good show to us as well as those on the outside world.

I let out a breath, clearing my head of everything to do with Jasper Hale and get on with the rest of my day off.

. . . . . . . . .

Walking into the Bureau the next day, I was immediately accosted by Tanya who told me that everyone was gathering in the meeting room. Apparently there was an urgent case happening.

At least it kept me from worrying about running into Jasper because that seemed to be the only thing that ran through my head all day yesterday and all this morning. I didn't know what the hell was going on with me now.

"Alright," We all turned to see Tanya walking into the room, files in her hands, dropping them in front of us. "We've got four murders within the last four weeks, two males and two females, alternating each week. All of them were found in Tillicum Park."

My head snapped up at the name of the park and I looked at Jake to see that he was looking at me, shock on his face as well.

"Forks?" Tanya nodded at my soft question and I ran my hands through my hair, really not wanting to deal with this. "Who were the victims?"

"Uh, the first was twenty-eight year old, Jessica Newton, the second was also twenty-eight, Eric Yorkie, third was twenty-nine year old Angela Cheney and the last one found last night was twenty-nine year old Eleazar Dwight." I let out a breath, closing my eyes before looking at Jake. He knew what I was thinking.

We're going home.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Staring out of the window of the jet, I couldn't help but chew on my thumbnail. I hadn't done that for a long time. It unnerved me but I couldn't stop.

"You're nervous." I started slightly, looking up, seeing Jasper standing next to my seat before taking one opposite me. I raised an eyebrow, wondering how he could tell. "Biting your thumb, looks like your tell." I glanced down at my hand before shrugging, looking back out the window. "This place, Forks, holds memories for you."

I let out a sigh, nodding. "I grew up there. My parents and sister still live there. I haven't seen them since I left for college."

"Wanna talk about it?" I let out a breath, not really wanting to but knowing that he was probably going to see straight through me when we arrived in Forks.

"Not now." He nodded, sitting back in his seat. I glanced over at Jake, seeing that his leg was bouncing up and down. He was as nervous as I was, it seemed. I wasn't the only one that had a problem with going home. We both had issues waiting for us when we landed and none of them were pretty.

"Jake from Forks as well?" Jasper asked quietly and I shook my head.

"La Push. It's an Indian reservation a few miles up the road. Jake and I grew up together. My . . . father . . . was Jake's dad's doctor. We met through the two of them and we were inseparable after that." I sighed, closing my eyes and shaking my head. "My parents weren't too pleased."

"Why not?"

I shook my head, looking back out the window. "Not here." I whispered and he nodded, his eyes filled with understanding as he leaned back in his chair, watching me quietly before he directed his gaze out of the window, watching as the country rolled past below us.

Because of the size of the jet, we were able to fly directly into the airport at Port Angeles before driving into Forks. It would be an hour's drive, depending on traffic and speed from Port Angeles to Forks and climbing out of that car meant that I would have to deal with all of the shit I'd left behind me in that tiny blip on the map in North West America.

I looked at Jake as the seatbelt sign came on and I could tell from the look on his face that he was feeling the same dread that I was. He wasn't looking forward to this any more than I was but we knew that it had to be done.

He moved over to sit next to me, giving Jasper a small smile which to me spoke volumes about how nervous he was about going back home. I wasn't used to Jake being so rattled. Normally he took everything in stride and didn't let anything get to him. Hell, I remember him waltzing up to the Chief of Police's house and introducing himself as his daughter's boyfriend. He had been stunned, she had been petrified and I had found it hilarious.

It all turned out for the best though, considering Charlie Swan laughed at Jacob's statement, saying that he appreciated his honest, knowing that many would have been afraid of approaching him for fear of being shot.

It all turned out alright considering they're now married and on their way to their second child.

So seeing Jake so nervous about being home wasn't giving me the best feeling in the world. I tried to ignore him and his fidgeting but it wasn't easy.

"Jake, will you stop." I hissed and he glanced at me. I glanced down at his knee and he stopped the movement.

"Sorry." He gave me a sheepish look and I nodded, understanding.

"There's no guarantee you'll see him, you know." I said softly and he sighed, shaking his head.

"I know. It's not like he's really free to move around on his own, is it?" He gave a chuckle which was completely without humour and I shook my head. "But I know that he'll know I'm in town. He'll probably send Harry or Sue or one of the others to try and get me to talk to him and I don't know if I can do that."

"I know I'm going to sound like the biggest hypocrite ever but . . . you need to at some point." He raised an eyebrow at me and I rolled my eyes. "What did I just say?" I held up a hand. "Hypcocrite, numero uno."

"What about you?"

"I think running into my family is unavoidable." I ran a hand through my hair and he nodded. "The morgue is in the hospital which is where my father works. No doubt he'll hear that the FBI is involved and poke his nose into whatever's going on and give his opinion, whether it concerns him or not."

"We'll deal with that when the time comes." He offered and I nodded, not convinced that it would be that simple. Things were never that simple when it came to my parents. They always made everything a thousand times more complicated than they should be.

I don't think I'd ever be comfortable around them again.

My mother, my father, my brother and my sister. I hadn't seen any of them for eleven years. They hadn't tried to contact me and I hadn't tried to contact them. They probably made up stories about me while I've been gone. Who knew what they'd told people.

Did they actually know what had happened after I moved away from Forks?

Did they know what I did for a living?

What I saw on a daily basis?

Did they care?

I guess I'll find out when I got there, wouldn't I?

. . . . . . . . . . .

The drive from Port Angeles to Forks was tense and silent. Jasper and I, again were in the same car that had been made available for us at the airport.

"What are we walking into here?" Jasper asked softly and I pulled myself out of the daze I was in.

"Huh?"

He chuckled, glancing at me quickly. "In Forks. What are we walking into?"

"Um . . ." I turned, grabbing the files from the backseat. I recognised that we were only about fifteen miles from Forks city limits and my stomach clenched.

"Not the case," he shook his head, his voice softening. "With everything else. You gonna be okay?"

"I don't know." I let out a sigh and he looked over at me again. "I guess that all depends on how much of an asshole my father is."

"Nice guy, huh?" He snorted and I chuckled darkly, shaking my head.

"Nothing I did was good enough for him." I sighed, resting my elbow on the edge by the window. "He pushed us all to meet his expectations and they were almost always so high that reaching them was impossible. After my brother left for college he . . . his real colours _really_ came out. My brother is three years older than me and while I finished high school my dad became almost unbearable. When I started my junior year I found that my schedule was packed with AP programs that I'd had no idea about and then when I got home that first day, he told me that I'd have additional lessons with tutors at home."

"What other lessons?"

"Advanced Biology, languages and stuff. Unnecessary shit that I didn't need."

"Wait, is that how you can speak so many languages?" He laughed and I raised an eyebrow. "What? You didn't think I wouldn't read up on the people I'm supposed to work with, did you?"

I laughed, looking back out at the passing trees. "We're getting close." I glanced in the side mirror. I could see that the others weren't too far behind us. "I guess I didn't and yes, that's why I can speak so many languages. For some reason he believed that I needed to know them, even when he didn't. Best use I got out of them before I left home was insulting him without him really knowing it."

"He probably knew." He laughed and I shrugged, not really caring. "So you can speak Spanish, Italian, Russian, French, um . . . Arabic . . . and I can't remember the last one."

"Greek." I chuckled and he nodded. "Don't ask me where my father thought I would ever use Arabic and Greek. I will never know."

"Well, it could come in handy, especially given the job." Jasper shrugged and I rolled my eyes.

"Don't tell him that, please. Inflate his ego even more." I snorted and he smirked. "I didn't have any free time. I lost all my friends because they thought I was ditching them, they thought that I was better than them and didn't have any time to do anything other than what he wanted me to do. He controlled my life."

"What about your sister?" He asked and I closed my eyes as we passed the 'Welcome to Forks' sign.

"Daddy's little princess." I rolled my eyes, remembering the way my sister was with my father. "She did anything he wanted her to. And because of that, she got her freedom. I didn't want to be a want he wanted me to be and he didn't like it so he controlled every aspect of my life that he could."

"There was one aspect he couldn't control, though." Jasper supplied, a smug aspect in his tone.

"It's just up here on E Division." I gestured in the direction he needed to be in. "And what would that be?"

He pulled into the parking lot and parked the car before looking over at me. "Your sexuality."

And he hit the nail on the head with his conclusion. My father had been pissed when I told him that I was gay before dismissing it completely. After I had come out to him, he had started arranging more dinners and inviting guests over for meals. Always ones that had daughters my age. It seemed that he thought that my sexuality was a phase and that if he threw a few girls at me then I would immediate realise I'd been wrong and decide I was straight again.

The girls' parents were the same, commenting about how we'd look so good together, saying that we'd make 'a handsome couple' whatever the hell that meant. I hated it. The only reprieve seemed to be that the daughters of the people my father invited over were smart and could hold a conversation. They didn't understand why my father was the way that he was. Hell, _I_ didn't understand that.

They understood that I was gay and two of them became really good friends afterwards.

"Not for lack of trying." I muttered and he raised an eyebrow at me. I shook my head, waving him off. "It's nothing."

"Well, why don't we shelve that until it comes and then deal with it, yeah?" He suggested and I turned to look at him as I noticed the others were pulling into the lot.

"Why would you help me with this?" I asked and he blinked, clearly wondering where that had come from. "I mean, you hardly know me. We might work together but there's no reason for you to want to help me try and deal with the shit storm that could come from this case."

"Everyone needs someone in their corner, Edward." He said softly, opening his door, his intention of getting out of the car clear. "And who knows, I reckon we can be friends." He smirked at me as he climbed out of the car and I couldn't help but chuckle.

I climbed out of the car, grabbing the files before making my way into the station behind Jasper. The others were walking into the station at the same time and Jake shot me a look. I knew what he was thinking.

_Can we handle this_?

Only one way to figure it out, I guess.

We walked into the station and I chuckled, hearing the age old, booming voice of Chief of Police, Charlie Swan. I looked at Jake, who was smirking as well and we both knew that this man would never leave this station. At least not without a fight.

"Jeez, old man, you still here?" I called out, causing the officers in the room to turn and look at me.

"Well, well, well, what brought you two degenerates back to town?" He laughed, walking over to us and we stopped, shrugging.

"Well, we heard you had a problem." I smirked, looking at him and he chuckled, probably figuring out who we were from and why we were back in Forks. "And we're here to help you fix it."

"And what makes you think we need _your_ help?" I closed my eyes, hearing the pissed off growl from behind me and I really didn't want to deal with it. But one look at Jake told me what I needed to know. I had no choice but to acknowledge him.

"Because you've got four bodies, no leads and we've been called in." I replied, turning around to face the one person I'd thought I could count on and yet he was the one person that had left me when I knew I couldn't count on anyone else in the family.

"So . . . no hug, big brother?"

. . . . . . . . . . . . .


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

"_And what makes you think we need _your_ help?"_

"_Because you've got four bodies, no leads and we've been called in." _

"_So . . . no hug, big brother?"_

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

_**Edward**_

I stood there looking at my brother as he glared at me. I had always thought that Emmett would be the one person in my corner as he'd seen a little of our father's controlling nature before he left for college. He hadn't seen the worst of it but he had to have known what it was like living with him.

But right now, that wasn't my worry. I wasn't going to get into it with him.

I rolled my eyes, not wanting to deal with him right now. "Whatever. What have you got so far?" I turned back to Chief Swan, who gave me a sympathetic look before moving towards the flow chart they had up. "Unfortunately, being such a small town there's a lot of overlap so finding links between the victims isn't hard. Practically everything is a link. Where they went to school, where they shop, basically everything they do overlaps."

"Alright, then we need to explore other avenues." Garrett supplied, walking over to the whiteboard, looking over the photographs that had been tacked up to the wall. I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at the photographs were on the wall. I didn't think I could see my old classmates like that. I knew I'd have to at some point soon but it hit too close to home right now.

"We need to find out if there was anyone new in their lives." Jasper walked over to the board, looking over towards Charlie. "Someone new in town would be noticed, right?"

"More than likely." He sighed, folding his arms, shaking his head. "Populations just over thirty-five hundred so everyone pretty much knows everyone else. It gets kind of hard for someone to go unnoticed around here."

"Word gets around." Jake said softly and I nodded. "One person sees someone new and they tell someone else and words just gets spread. A few days later the entire town knows that someone new is in town."

"So maybe they're not in _Forks_." I murmured and the others turned to look at me. I pulled out my cell, hitting speed-dial, waiting for it to connect to Bree.

"Speak and be heard." I smirked at Emmett's confused look when it came to Bree answering the phone.

"Hey, Bree, I need you to check the victims spending _outside_ of Forks. See if any of the places they visited cross over. Also, can you check internet spending coupled with deliveries?"

"What are you thinking?" Jake asked, stepping over to me.

I held up a finger, wanting to make sure I didn't lose my train of thought. "Check appointments as well, Bree, doctors, salons, anything outside of Forks. Go as far out as Seattle and back a couple of months to be safe."

"Gotcha, I'll hit you back when I've got something." I hung up and looked at the others.

"Chief Swan was right, in Forks, there's too much overlap. Basically everything someone does in Forks, almost half the population has done the same thing on the same day but," I moved over to the map of the state that was on the wall, "in the area around Forks there's Port Angeles, Sequim, Port Townsend. Maybe if there's an overlap in any of these places, we'll be able to narrow it down." I looked at the others and saw them nodding, agreeing with me. "We'll know more when she gets back to us."

"Each of the victims was found on a Thursday, right?" Jasper asked and the Chief murmured the affirmative. "Then we're looking at something each of the victims has done in the days prior. They've met the unsub somewhere before."

"Unsub?" Emmett sounded confused and I rolled my eyes.

"'Unknown subject'," I looked over at him to find him glaring at me again and I let out a breath, running a hand through my hair. I wasn't sure where the hell his attitude was coming from but it needed to stop now. "Emmett," I turned to look at him and he raised an eyebrow at me. "A word. Now." I made sure that my tone held no room for argument as I made my way outside. The others would know that there was something not quite right but they wouldn't call me out on it in front of the local PD, even if I had known them all since before kindergarten. I didn't look behind me to check and see if Emmett was following me.

He would if he knew what was good for him.

"What?" I stopped, turning around and levelling him with a glare of my own.

"What the hell do you mean 'what'?" I shot back, shaking my head. I let out a laugh, running my hand through my hair, really not wanting to get into all of this right now. "Look, I get that you're pissed at me, for whatever reason but the attitude, it stops now."

"And who the hell are you to tell me what the fuck to do, Edward?" He crossed his arms over his chest, like he always had done when we were children. Something he'd always done when he could see things weren't going his way. "After everything you've put us through-"

"Excuse me!" I shot around, staring at him. "After everything _I've_ put you through." I let out another laugh, shaking my head again. "You have no idea. You have no idea what went on after you left for college. If you'd bothered to contact us at any point, then you might have known, but you have no idea." I let out a breath, closing my eyes and trying to calm down. "You know what? I'm not getting into this with you. Not here. Not now. You asked me who I am to tell you what to do. I'll tell you who I am. I'm Special Agent Cullen. Right now, I am not Edward or Eddie or whatever abbreviation people want to use. I'm a Federal Agent, Emmett and I can have you pulled off this case faster than you can say 'what the hell'?" His face dropped slightly and I fought a smirk. Quite successfully I might add. "While I am here, working, I am your superior, Emmett. Understand?" He didn't answer me and I turned to him, giving him a glare that Jake had admitted he hated. "Do you understand, Emmett?"

"Whatever." He shook his head and I rolled my eyes.

"I get it. You're not happy that your little brother is currently superior to you but you really can't do anything about it. So while I am here, working this case, just keep your mouth shut and do as you're told and we'll be fine." I left no room for argument as I made my way back into the station. Jake raised a questioning eyebrow in my direction and I shook my head. "Later." I muttered and he looked behind him as Emmett walked back into the room.

"Alright," Garrett looked around at us. "Jake, you and Jasper head to the last two abduction sites, Tanya, you stay here and try and control the media outlets that have caught wind of what's happening, Victoria and I will head to the first abduction sites, to try and make any links and Edward, I want you to head to Jessica Newton's house and talk with her husband, Michael."

We all nodded, making our way to our individual cars. I could feel Emmett's glare as I walked out of the station.

"Edward?" I turned to see Garrett walking over to me, a concerned look on his face. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah." I nodded and he didn't look convinced. "He's always had an attitude on him and I'll admit, I have no idea what's going on with him now. I know it has something to do with me but right now, I don't care what's going on with him. He's gotta get over it."

"There aren't going to be any problems, are there?" He looked concerned and I knew why.

"Not from my end." He nodded, glancing back towards the station. "Look, he knows that while we're working on this case, I'm not his brother. I'm an FBI Agent and he knows what that means. Emmett might be a meathead when he wants to be but he's not stupid. He should behave."

"Let's hope that he does." He nodded before turning back to his car and I let out a breath, climbing into my own and making myself ready to visit Mike Newton. I wondered how he was going to take my arrival on his doorstep.

It didn't take me long to get to Mike's house. He was living in his parents old house, so with one glance at the address Garrett had given me I knew exactly where it was.

Parking on the street outside Mike's house, I let my hands rest on the steering wheel, letting out a breath, turning to look at the house. Memories from high school before Emmett had left for college, when I had some freedom in my life, flashed through my mind. I remembered sitting in Mike's basement, playing video games with friends, Jake, Ben, Eric, Tyler. The occasional parties that he used to throw when his parents were out of town and the hell he used to get when his parents found out.

I missed out on all of that my last two years of high school because of my father's controlling behaviour and this had caused my friends to believe that I'd abandoned them and thought myself better than them. At least that was what they had told me when I had tried to understand why they were freezing me out. Not that they had given me a chance to explain what was going on.

It was then that I had realised I was completely alone.

I shook my head and climbed out of the SUV, grabbing my briefcase that held all of my case files, notes and anything else I needed. I made my way up the walkway and knocked gently on the door.

After a minute, the door opened and I saw a very poor looking Mike standing in front of me. His eyes widened as he saw me standing on his doorstep.

"Edward?"

"Hey, Mike." I took in his appearance and I could see that he had taken Jessica's death hard. They had been in an on again off again relationship all through high school even though everyone knew that they would end up together.

"Wow," he ran a hand through his hair, sighing heavily. "Didn't think I'd see you around here again." I shrugged, giving him a small smile. "I mean, you didn't come back for the reunion, so . . ."

"I know," I looked at the yard before looking back at Mike. "I'm not here on a personal visit, Mike." I pulled out my badge, showing it to him. "I know it's probably the last thing you want to do right now but I need to ask you some questions."

"Oh," he looked down at the ground, shuffling his feet slightly. When he looked back up at me, his eyes were shining and I felt my chest clench when I thought about the pain my old friend must have been feeling. "Sure." His voice had dissolved into nothing more than a whisper. "Come on in." He stepped back, allowing me into the house and I stepped inside.

He gestured towards the living room, rolling his eyes with a small smile. I chuckled gently and he walked in front of me, sitting on one of the couches in the living room.

I looked at the photographs on the mantle, noticing one that had been taken in our sophomore year. It was of six of us from school. It was taken at a beach party down at La Push. There was Jessica, Lauren, Bella, Jake, Mike and me. We were all trying to pose but doing so on sand was not the easiest thing to do, so we were all collapsing onto each other and laughing.

I smiled at the memory.

"She loved that picture." Mike sighed, seeing which one I was looking at. "Wouldn't let anyone move it."

I turned to look at Mike, taking in the broken man in front of me. "I'm so sorry about Jess, Mike." I said softly and he looked up at me, nodding before looking back at the floor. "I know it's hard but I need to ask you some things about Jess."

He let out a breath, nodding slowly. "Will it help?" He looked up at me, his eyes pleading. "Will it help catch the bastard that did this to my Jess?"

"It might." I couldn't lie to him and tell him that it definitely would.

"Daddy?" I closed my eyes, never hating that sound more than I did now. I opened my eyes, seeing a little girl of around two running into the room and towards Mike. She saw me sitting there and ran over to her father, climbing up on the sofa and hiding behind him.

"Sophie, come on." Mike sounded weary, reaching round and wrapping his arms around his daughter. "This is Edward." I gave her a small smile and she just watched me with wide eyes. "Say hi to Edward."

"Hi," she whispered, watching me closely.

"Hi, Sophie." I gave her a small wave and she grinned at me. Apparently, that was all it took to make friends with Mike's little girl.

"Soph, sweetie, Daddy needs to talk with Edward for a little bit." She looked up at him with wide eyes. "Can you go play in your room for a while, huh?" She nodded, running off towards the stairs. "Don't wake up your brother." Mike called after her, before his head dropped into his hands. I didn't say anything, knowing that he needed to work up to it himself. "She keeps asking when Mommy's coming home." He looked up at me and I saw nothing but anguish there. "How do you tell a two year old that her mommy's not coming home? How do you even think about how to tell you four month old child that his mother was murdered when he's older?" Four month old son. Shit.

"I don't know, Mike." I said softly, shaking my head. "But I know that when it comes around to it, you'll do it so that they understand. I don't know when it'll be or how they'll react but as long as they know that you're there, they'll be okay." He nodded, sniffing slightly. "We don't have to do this now. I can come back another time."

"No," he sat up, shaking his head, inhaling a deep breath. "You said that it could help you catch this bastard." I nodded. "Then I'll tell you whatever you want to know."

"Okay," I gave him a soft smile. "You need to stop, just say the word and we'll stop." He nodded, understanding. "Okay," I took a deep breath, resting my arms on my knees in front of me. "Was there anything about Jess's behaviour that was . . . off in any way in the days before she died?"

He shook his head. "No. She was the same as she always was. She hadn't changed since high school, you know." He laughed softly. "She was still bubbly, saw the good in everyone. Still loved to gossip but instead of talking to everyone, she just told me whatever was going on." I couldn't help but smile. Jess was awful at keeping secrets and she knew that was why we didn't tell her certain things. She didn't take offense to it, stating numerous times that she wouldn't have been able to keep it to herself if she knew.

"She had a routine?"

He nodded, licking his lips, sniffing again. "Yeah, um, when she got up, she would see to the kids, make sure that they were ready to go and she'd generally run errands during the day while I was at work. We'd go to the diner on Friday's meeting up with friends. That was generally the only time we'd go out." He let out a chuckle. "With two little ones, you don't really have a social life, you know?" I nodded, smiling softly.

"Was there anything different about her routine that week?"

He thought for a moment, obviously trying to find memories that he would have dismissed as unimportant at the time. "She went into Port Angeles on the Tuesday." I nodded, indicating for him to carry on.

"Anything about what happened around the time that she died could help, Mike." I urged and he nodded.

"After Jamie was born, we decided that we didn't want any more children. Two was enough for us. We'd always talked about just having the two. I, um . . . I was going to make an appointment to get a . . . a vasectomy but I knew that I needed to log extra hours at work so I could take the time off afterwards. Jess was going to an appointment to get information about it on Tuesday."

"Was that the only deviation from her usual routine?" I asked and he nodded. "What clinic was it?"

"Um . . . the Inspire Medical Clinic."

I nodded, pulling out my phone and calling Bree. "_Hey, honey_."

"Hey, Bree, Jessica Newton had an appointment at the Inspire Medical Clinic on the Tuesday before she died. Can you check and see if any of the other victims had appointments there?" I asked, knowing it was a stupid question. If it was there, Bree could find it.

"Gotcha, honey. Will hit you back when I've got something."

"Thanks." I hung up, slipping my phone back into my pocket.

"So, they're just victims now?" Mike asked, watching me closely. I sighed gently, knowing how it would have sounded to him. They had been our friends while we'd been growing up and now to his ears, to me, they were nothing more than victims.

"I know how it sounds, Mike." He raised an eyebrow, silently daring me. "It helps me to stay objective. If I let myself get too emotional, I'll be useless."

"I guess so." He rubbed his hands over his face and I could see it was taking a lot out of him to just go on right now.

"Look, what you told me could really help us. It narrows it down. If Jess didn't deviate from her usual routine in any other way than going to that appointment in Port Angeles then we might be able to narrow it down a lot." I told him, knowing that my words weren't going to do very much but if we could catch Jess's killer, it would give Mike a little bit of peace of mind.

"Do you have kids, Edward?" He asked softly, looking at me with watery eyes.

"No." I shook my head, looking down at the carpet. "I doubt I'll ever have any children."

"Why do you say that?" His brows furrowed, clearly confused.

"I'm gay, Mike."

"Oh," clearly not expecting that one, "wow. Um . . ."

"It's okay." I gave him a small smile. "You don't have to say anything. You didn't know."

"When . . . um, when did you realise that?"

"Senior year." I whispered and his expression immediately morphed into one of guilt. "Don't worry about it, Mike. It wasn't your fault. You didn't know."

"But you were all on your own." He said, his voice as quiet as mine. "And that was our fault. We just left you on your own and we didn't even give you a chance to explain anyth-"

I held up a hand, effectively shutting him up. "Mike, it was eleven years ago, it's forgotten, it's forgiven. You're right. It wasn't right of you guys to just do that without waiting for an explanation but," I shrugged, "what's done is done. You can't change the past. I'm over it." He looked down, clearly feeling guilt. "Look, you need to get over it too. I'm not going to get into everything now but if I have some time when we're done, we can talk, okay?"

"Yeah." He nodded and I stood up.

"I know it's hard right now, but you're going to be okay." He looked up at me. "You've got two children that need you there, they need their daddy there." He nodded, sniffing gently. "You'll be okay."

"Thanks, Edward."

I nodded, making my way towards the door. "Edward?"

"Yeah?" I turned to look at him.

"Catch the bastard."

I nodded, turning and walking out of the door. I sighed, closing my eyes as I closed the door.

"I will."

. . . . . . . . . .


	5. Chapter 5

**_Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure._**

_**Edward**_

Pulling up to the station I had to take a minute to get my bearings. Visiting Mike had impacted me more than I thought it would or more than I wanted it to.

I couldn't deny that talking about Jess had hit a nerve. She had always been an amazing friend to me. She had always been there, even after the others had pushed me away, she knew that there was something wrong. Even though I couldn't bring myself to tell her what was going on at home, she made sure I knew that she was there if I needed to talk.

I wish I'd taken her up on her offer.

I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath before I climbed out of the car and made my way back into the station. Chief Swan turned around as I walked in, a small smile on his face. At least, I thought it was. Not that you could really tell due to the enormous moustache on his face. Jake always called it his 'pornstache'. Quite fitting, if you ask me.

"You okay, Edward?" He asked as I sat down.

"I guess so," I ran my hand through my hair, resting my elbows on the desk in front of me. "It's just . . . harder than I thought it was going to be, you know?"

"Yeah," he sighed, resting his hands on his hips. "It's gonna be hard. You gonna be okay?"

I sat up straight, leaning back in the chair. "Yeah." I nodded, looking up at him. "Yeah, I will be. I just need a minute."

"Take all the time you need." He clapped me on the shoulder and I stood up, joining Tanya at the coffee machine.

"How you doing?" She asked, picking up her cup and leaning on the counter. She watched me carefully, flicking her head, moving her hair out of her eyes. "You holding up okay?"

"I guess so." I sighed, filling up the mug with coffee before adding cream and sugar. There wasn't a Starbucks close by so it would just have to do for now. "It's just . . . hard being back here. When I left, I told myself that I wouldn't come back here, that there was no reason for me to come here again and I told myself that this part of my life was one I wasn't going to revisit. And yet . . ." I gestured around the station, "here I am."

"It can't be that bad, can it?" She asked and I raised an eyebrow at her. I knew that she had grown up in a small town in Nebraska, so she knew what it could be like. "Alright, I know that look." She chuckled, shaking her head. "The pressure of being in a small town, knowing that there are certain things you'll be judged on no matter what happens-"

"The overwhelming _need_ to escape at the earliest possible chance?" I put in and she laughed, nodding.

"The two of us aren't meant for small towns, Edward." She said softly and I nodded, looking around at the officers that were milling about the station, doing whatever they needed to do. "We're the type of people that need to be somewhere bigger."

"Hence the reason we both joined the FBI." She nodded, laughing gently. "I just wish that I could leave all of this crap behind me."

"Stuff happen before you left?" She asked and I nodded.

"You could say that." I sighed, taking a sip of the coffee, wincing at the taste. Jesus, cop coffee was bad.

Tanya giggled at my reaction to the coffee. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Not right now." I shook my head, looking up at her. "But thanks."

"No problem." She looked back over at the officers in front of me. I looked over to see that Emmett was standing there. There was a look on his face that I couldn't place. At the moment, I didn't want to. I had more pressing things to think about than Emmett's whiplash mood swings. "I know what it's like in a small town. You wanna talk, I'm here."

"Thanks, Tan." I made my way over to where Chief Swan was standing in front of the white board. He was looking at the map that was marked with the abduction points and dump site, marked with different coloured pins. "Is this where you look at it for so long it turns into a pony or something?" I asked and he looked at me, smiling.

"There's just no pattern to it at all." He looked back at the map in front of him. "All of the abduction points are different," he pointed towards the four blue pins on the map. "I don't understand the points."

"Maybe there is no pattern." I suggested and he raised an eyebrow at me. "Think about it. If the unsub knew who he was going after, he might have just waited for an opportune moment to take them. Jessica was taken from the parking lot of the pharmacy, Eric Yorkie was taken from his front yard while he was leaving for work, Angela Cheney was taken when she was walking out of the elementary school and Eleazar was taken when he was waiting for Carmen and Lily at the park. Eleazar is the only one that was dumped in the same place he was taken from. All of the victims were dumped in Tillicum Park. Is the park still fenced off?" He nodded, turning to face me.

"What are you thinking?"

"There's got to be something about the park?" I looked back at the photos, seeing exactly how they died. I swallowed the lump that formed in my throat. I was used to seeing photographs like these but there was something different about seeing the people you knew, the people you went to school with, the people that you had been friends with displayed on the board in front of me.

It was becoming harder to stay objective but I needed to in order to find out who did this.

"There's a lot of people that go through the park, right?" I knew that there had been when I had lived in Forks, but I wasn't too sure about what might happen around the town at this point in time. He nodded and I ran my hand through my hair. "I'm gonna go to the park, see if there's anything there that might give us a lead of some sort."

"We've already combed that park. There's nothing we haven't checked out."

"We're trained see things that your officers wouldn't necessarily see." He raised an eyebrow again, clearly wondering what I meant by that statement. "I don't mean that in a critical way. We see the same things you do but we interpret them in a different way. Take the ligature marks. You see a method of restraint. We take a look at _why_ they were bound. Was it merely a way to control them, was it because he was smaller and needed to make sure there was no way for them to fight back and overpower him after the initial blow. There are many reasons and we try to look at the behaviour surrounding the evidence as well as the actual physical evidence at the scene." He nodded in understanding.

I pulled out my phone, taking a picture of the close up map of the park, showing where the victims had been found. Knowing exactly where they were would help me to get into the mind of the unsub.

"Alright, but don't go on your own." He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Unfortunately the only officer I have free is Emmett." I let out a breath, not wanting to get into anything with Emmett right now. "I've spoken to him about his attitude. He'll be on his best behaviour."

"He better be." I muttered, turning to make my way towards the front door of the station. I heard Emmett following me and I let out a breath as I made my way over to the SUV. I heard the door close behind me along with Emmett's heavy footfalls as he followed me.

I climbed into the car, waiting for Emmett to do the same. He glanced at me as he closed the door and I pulled out of the lot, turning onto the street to take us to the park. The air was thick with tension and I knew we had to get over this soon or else neither of us was going to be of any use. I had no idea what was going on with Emmett. I could only guess that our parents had told him their version of what had happened, omitting certain details.

And who knew what they'd told him.

"Mom's missed you, you know." He said softly as I made my way down the street. I let out a sigh, not responding to his words. "She's worried about you every day since you left."

"Emmett," I sighed, pulling up to one of the entrances to the park. "I can't do this right now. There's . . . there's just too much happening, both then and now. I can't go into it all." I climbed out of the car, wanting to leave this discussion back there but I knew Emmett had other ideas.

"Why didn't you call?" He caught up to me easily, his size working for him on this occasion.

"Because I didn't want to come back." I shot back and he stopped. I stopped, turning to look at him, seeing his shocked expression. He really didn't know what happened, did he? "The only reason I am here right now is because my team was called in. If it hadn't been for that, chances are I would never have set foot in this goddamn town again." I closed my eyes, shaking my head. "Look, we can't go into this now. We have work to do before the sun goes down and I need a clear head."

"I know that Mom would love to see you, Eddie." I felt my chest clench at the name Emmett always used to call me before he left.

"Please tell me you didn't call her." I said softly, turning to look at him again. He looked away from me and I cursed. "Dammit, Emmett. If I wanted to see them, I would have called them myself. I _don't_ want to see them. Any of them."

"Why the hell not. Don't you think they at least deserve to know why you disappeared, Edward."

"They _know_ why."

"Then tell me."

"Not now." I turned and walked over to the officers patrolling the edges of the park, showing them my badge before I walked onto the grass. I heard Emmett behind me again and I didn't want to deal with this anymore. I pulled out my phone, pulling up the picture I'd taken of the map at the station, making my way towards the tree line where Jess was found.

I stood in the spot Jess's body had been found in and turned in a circle. If he'd come in across the park carrying Jess, he would have been seen. No matter what time of day it was. There were streets all around the park, all of them lit after dark and all of them having traffic travelling around.

"Emmett?" He looked up at me, walking over to me slowly. "Is there any way into the parking lot of the Resource Department after closing?"

"I'm not sure." He looked back toward the building. "What are you thinking?"

I walked over to him, showing him the picture I'd taken and pointing towards the building. "There's no way that someone could dump a body here without being seen unless they'd used the woods. Even so, someone would have seen a car parked on the roadside for too long. As nosy as the population of Forks is, the car would have been noticed and people would have mentioned it. Unless, it was parked out of sight." I enhanced the picture to show him what I meant. "Now, the only way I can see a car not being noticed was if it was in the parking lot of the Resource building or if they'd taken the dirt road right behind the woods."

"It's a hell of a distance to carry them though." He turned to look at the woods. "Especially if it's dead weight and through the woods."

"I know, but any other way would have been seen." I looked back at him. "I mean, someone carrying a body isn't something that's seen every day. It would have been reported, meaning that he couldn't have been seen." I started to walk in the direction of the Resource building, where Angela Cheney's body had been found when a member of staff had opened up. He obviously hadn't expected to find what he did. The building had been closed since she had been found and we knew that they were losing a lot of money by keeping it closed. Ever since those vampire movies had come out, Forks had had an influx of tourists.

Something I could see annoying some of the residents who wanted their quiet little town to remain that way.

"Now, if they could get their vehicle round the back of here," I followed it around finding a small alcove at around the back of the woods. "If they could get it through here, then it wouldn't take much to carry the body through to where Jess was found." I looked in the other direction, towards where Eric Yorkie was dumped on the grassy corner by the trees. "And again, get the truck close enough to the tree line, it wouldn't been too far to where Eric was dumped."

"How are we going to narrow it down?" I shook my head, not knowing.

"We need to focus on who he's going to go after next." I sighed and his head snapped around. Apparently, we didn't like that thought. "He's not going to stop until he's caught. But, now that his dump site has been compromised, he has to adapt."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly that." I walked past him, back to the SUV, hearing him following me. "If he follows true to his pattern, we have two days before he snatches another victim, history states that it'll be a woman this time and we have no idea who we're looking for. At the moment, we only have the basics."

I looked up at the sky, seeing that it was starting to get dark, knowing that there wasn't much we could do until there was enough light again.

Heading back to the station, we met up with everyone else. They hadn't been able to come up with a link between the abduction sites and Garrett made a call to Bree, putting her on speakerphone.

"I'm glad you called because I have just received the appointment books for the Inspire Medical Centre like you asked me to, Edward and all of them had appointments there in the days before they were killed." That was progress.

"So, we could be looking at staff of the clinic?" Victoria asked Bree.

"I'm not sure, they're sending me the employee rosters first thing in the morning. They're open seven days but they're not able to access employee files until the morning." We thanked her and hung up.

"Right, we'll leave it there for tonight, get some rest and pick it up with fresh eyes first thing in the morning." Garrett suggested and we all nodded. I was starving and all I wanted was some food and some rest.

"Edward." I groaned silently as I heard Emmett's voice behind me. "Look, I know you don't want to talk to me right now but . . . we need to talk. Please?"

"Alright." I sighed, running a hand through my hair, tugging on the ends slightly. I looked over at Jasper who was watching me carefully. He silently asked me if I was okay and I nodded slightly. The look he gave me told me that he was there if I needed to talk, he was there for me. I never realised before now how much support this team gave each other.

It made me smile.

"Really?" He asked, his voice filled with hope and I turned around, nodding. "Alright, let me get changed quickly and then we can head out. The diner okay with you?" I nodded and he gave me a small grin, heading towards the back to get changed.

"Jasper?" He made his way over to me. "You mind taking my bags to the motel?" He nodded, grabbing the keys to the SUV . I let out a breath, wondering if I was ready to speak to my brother about why I left all those years ago. I guess now was as good a time as any.

Emmett walked out a few minutes later and we determined that we would take his car to the diner. He would drop me off at the motel afterwards and I hoped that we didn't end up in an argument. Especially not in public. That wouldn't be good.

"Ready to go." He grinned and I shrugged.

"Ready as I'll ever be."

"Come on, I'm not that bad, am I?" He asked and I couldn't tell whether he was being serious or just joking around. "Come on. We can talk when we get there. I don't know about you but I'm starving."

"You're always starving." I joked and he laughed, nodding. It was easy to slip back into joking with Emmett but it wasn't enough. We couldn't go back to being how we were before he left for college. It had been too long.

The drive to the diner was silent, neither of us knowing what to say to each other. It had never really been like this when we had been younger. There had always been noise and things happening in the house, games, arguments that happen between brothers, picking on Alice. You know, normal sibling stuff. But this ride was filled with nothing more than tension and I knew that he could feel it as well.

The diner was exactly how I remembered it.

The same people sitting in the same seats eating the same food that had been served here for as long as I could remember. Conversation dulled a little as we walked in. Apparently people recognised me as I walked in. Not that I was surprised.

"Hey, Lauren." Emmett called over towards an ice blonde woman who turned around to look at him. I blinked in surprise, seeing Lauren Mallory standing behind the counter, grinning at Emmett.

"Edward?" Her eyes widened as she took me in. Her face erupted into a huge grin and she practically ran around the corner and launched herself at me. "Oh my God, Edward, I can't believe you're here. It's been so long!"

"Hi, Lauren." I chuckled slightly, returning her hug before she moved away from me. "How've you been?"

"Oh, you know. Life if Forks." She giggled, looking me up and down again. "Wow, looking sharp there, Edward. What brings you back to Forks?"

"Work." She raised an eyebrow, clearly curious.

"Little Eddie here, is a fed." I looked at Emmett, confused at the pride I could hear in his voice. See? Whiplash moods.

"A fed?" She seemed surprised and I nodded.

"Yeah, I work for the Behavioural Analysis Unit of the FBI." I shrugged and she grinned again.

"Wow, working for the big man, huh?" I shrugged again and she laughed before looking slightly sullen. "I guess you're in town because of the murders that had happened, huh?" I nodded again and she blinked. "Edward?" She sounded a little nervous, looking up at me through her lashes. "Find him. Please."

"We're trying." I assured her and she nodded, looking up, blinking rapidly. Thinking of what had happened clearly upset her and she nodded, moving back behind the counter and serving someone that was waiting.

"Come on." Emmett nodded towards an empty booth and I followed after him, sitting down opposite him. "She was really close to Angela and Jessica. They were the only ones that stuck by her after all of the shit Tyler put her through." I raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was talking about. "Lauren and Tyler got married when they were twenty. Everything seemed good, they were happy, Lauren got pregnant with twins and up until three years ago, she found out that he had been cheating on her."

"Shit."

"Tell me about it." He sighed, looking up as a waitress approached our table with some menus, asking if we wanted anything to drink while we decided what to have. "I'll have a coke, please."

"And for you, handsome?" I looked up at her and saw that she was smiling and blinking at me in what she figured was a sexy way. Personally, I just thought she had something in her eye.

"Make it two, thank you." I took the menu from her and she winked at me before walking off. Emmett snickered across the table at me and I raised an eyebrow. "What the hell was that?"

"I think you might be in there." He laughed and I shuddered at the thought. "That's Irina. She's been in town for a couple of years. No one really knows much about where she came from but she's alright. A huge flirt with almost every guy that she comes across but essentially she's harmless."

"So why didn't she flirt with you?" I dared him and he smirked.

"Because she's afraid of Rosie." I raised an eyebrow, silently asking who the hell Rosie was. "My wife." I felt my eyes widen slightly and he laughed. "I know. Me, married? Seems unlikely but it's true." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, opening it and showing me a picture of him with a blonde woman and a little boy.

"She's pretty." I nodded and he scoffed.

"Pretty?" He put his wallet away, smirking. "She fucking gorgeous. And she's also given me the best little boy anyone could ask for."

"Seems like you're all settled down, then." I laughed and he nodded. "Who would've thought?" He shrugged, smirking. "She must be some woman to be able to get you to settle down."

"Hey, hands off my woman. Get your own." He mock glared at me and I leaned forward, resting my arms on the table. "So . . . are there any lucky women in your life, Eddie?"

I raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged. "They didn't tell you, did they?"

"Tell me what?"

I leaned back in my chair, laughing gently. "Oh God, why doesn't that surprise me?" I chuckled and he looked at me confused. "I'm gay, Emmett."

I could practically hear his jaw hit the table. "You're kidding me?" I shook my head and he did the same, running his hands through his hair. "Wait," he leaned forward, looking at me closely, "you said that they didn't tell me. Do you mean that mom and dad know?" I nodded and he cursed. "Why wouldn't they tell me that?"

"Because it's not something that would be socially acceptable if it got out." I rolled my eyes and he scoffed, nodding along with my words.

"You can say that again." He muttered and I raised an eyebrow at him. "They don't like Rosie. Well, dad doesn't anyway. Apparently, her family isn't well off enough for her to be good enough for me. Not that I gave a rat's ass."

"Well, I guess not, considering you married her." He laughed nodding. "He tried to get to you break it off, didn't he?" He nodded and I let out a breath. "What did he do?"

"He cut me off." He shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "First he said that if I didn't end it with her then he would cut me off and when I didn't, he followed through on his threat. This was when I was in my last semester at college but what he didn't realise was that even though he'd been paying for everything up till then, I'd been working."

"Squirrelling money away, were we?" I chuckled and he nodded.

"I knew that there was a chance that I'd do something to piss him off and he'd cut everything off, so I knew that I couldn't take any chances. It was just a waiting job in a restaurant. That's why I didn't want anyone coming to visit in Seattle." I nodded, remembering when I asked Emmett to visit and he told me he didn't want anyone to come to Seattle to see him. "I didn't mean to make you feel like I'd left you behind, Eddie. I'm guessing that's what you thought, right?"

"Yeah." I looked up at him, looking him straight in the eye. "I needed you, Emmett. After you left, he started controlling everything about my life. He rearranged my school schedule, he filled up any free time I had with tutoring sessions, extra classes. The only days I got off were public holidays and even then, he managed to hide my car keys so I couldn't go out anywhere. I felt trapped, Emmett. I literally had no way out of that house. I didn't have a summer vacation. I had summer school. I didn't get to go to prom because he was working and didn't know what time I'd be leaving or what time I'd be home. All of my friends thought that I was ditching them so I had no one. And then when you stopped coming home, I felt so alone. I couldn't breathe. I had to get out."

We stopped talking as Irina arrived with our drinks and took our orders, giving me another strange smile. Emmett, now knowing that there was no way I'd be interested in her, he couldn't contain the childish giggles that were coming out of him. She shot him a strange look and I rolled my eyes, wondering if he'd ever grow up.

"I'm sorry." He whispered and I looked over at him, taking a sip of my coke. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you to talk to when you needed me. I'm sorry, I couldn't see what dad was doing. How he was changing and how you were hurting. I'm sorry."

I took a breath, not wanting to say what I was about to but I knew it had to be done. "I'm not going to say don't apologise. I'm not going to say it's alright because it's not. I needed you. I needed you, Emmett. I needed you and you weren't there."

"I know." He sighed sadly, burying his head in his hands. "I know and I'm sorry. I know it means nothing now but I am. If you give me the chance, please let me make it up to you." He looked up at me, his eyes pleading with me. "Please, Eddie."

"He should be the one making it up to us." I rolled my eyes at the voice I heard from behind me.

I turned to see one of the ones that made my life hell for two years standing in front of me, glaring at me with all she had.

"Of course you think that, Alice."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_**Of course not living in Forks or Port Angeles, I'm not entirely sure about the layout and opening times. The layout of Tillicum Park was taken off of Google Maps, so it may have changed. The Inspire Medical Clinic actually exists in PA but I don't know specifics so I've taken a little liberty with it.**_

_**I'm allowing for a little creative license here.**_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_"He should be the one making it up to us." I rolled my eyes at the voice I heard from behind me._

_I turned to see one of the ones that made my life hell for two years standing in front of me, glaring at me with all she had._

_"Of course you think that, Alice."_

_**Edward**_

I turned back to the table, essentially ignoring Alice's presence. I really didn't care what she wanted.

"Is that all you have to say?" She snapped and I rolled my eyes again, causing Emmett to snicker, trying to cover it up with a cough. I raised my eyebrows at him letting him know that he wasn't too successful in his endeavour.

"Pretty much." I shrugged, taking another sip of my coke. "What do you want, Alice?"

"I want to know why my brother who disappears for eleven years without a word is suddenly sitting in the diner playing nice with my other brother that married the gold-digging bitch." We both turned around, glaring at her.

"Watch your mouth, Alice." Emmett snarled and she smirked, clearly not caring that she'd hit a nerve.

"What? Don't like hearing the truth?"

"Nothing like hearing it from a narcissistic bitch to realise the truth, huh, Emmett?" I smirked up at her, trying not to laugh at her expression. "Oh, sorry, don't like hearing the truth?"

"You can talk to me like that?" She started tapping her foot on the ground, looking at me like she was waiting for something. What was she waiting for? An apology? Fat chance of that happening.

"Actually, I think you'll find I can." I leaned back in my chair, watching her reaction. "See now, even if I hadn't known you since the day you were born, I'd still know what buttons to push. Because people like you are so easy to read, Alice. You care about two things." I held up a finger for each thing. "Money and status. Nothing else matters to you and do you know why?" I stood up, towering over her just as I had when we were teenagers. "Because daddy dearest only cares about those things and you being daddy's little princess has to do anything and everything he says. I'm really not in the mood to deal with you, Alice. Go away."

I sat back down, facing Emmett again, pointedly ignoring Alice.

"Mom and Dad know you're in town." She snarked and I could see her crossing her arms over her chest.

"Whoopie." I replied, sarcasm dripping from my tone as Emmett smirked. Apparently, he wasn't too impressed with our little sister either.

"They want to see you." She stepped backwards as the waitress arrived with Emmett and my food, apparently sensing that there was something happening in front of her, departing quickly.

"Can't say that I care." I replied, spearing a fry with my fork, watching Emmett drown his meal in ketchup. Some things don't change, do they?

"What do you mean, you don't care?"

"Alice, I am not here because I want to be. I am here to work." I looked back up at her. "Not to socialise with the asshole father, pushover mother and snotty, smartass sister I left this town to get away from in the first place. Now, if you don't mind, I'm trying to eat and you're making me lose my appetite."

"Well, Mom and Dad know you're here so you're going to have to talk to them sooner or later."

"Not if I can help it." I remarked and she huffed, walking out of the diner. "Well, I can see that our little sister hasn't changed at all."

"Nope." He shook his head.

"What did she mean about your wife?" I asked and he sighed, putting his burger down. Well, if Emmett stops eating to talk, then you know it's something serious.

"Alice has always hated Rosalie, from the moment she met her. Not a clue why." He shrugged, shaking his head. "I guess there was something about Rose she found intimidating or something, I don't know. I never really wanted to ask. And then Dad came out with the whole 'gold digger' thing and she jumped on that bandwagon faster than you can say credit card."

"God, I hate that man." I sighed and Emmett looked up at me. "What? You can't tell me that he's number one on your list of favourite people."

"True." He shrugged, going back to his food. He took another bite of his burger, chewing while he thought about what he was going to say. "Anyway, Rosie's not from the kind of background we are. Her parents weren't _well off_, they were comfortably off but not overly rich or prominent like Mom and Dad wanted us to be with but I didn't care. She was my Rosie. She's smart, tenacious, knows what she wants, goes after what she wants, doesn't give a shit about what anyone thinks of her and stands up for what she believes in."

"Sounds like a handful." I laughed and he mock glared at me before laughing.

"She can be when she wants to be." He chuckled and I smiled, picking up my burger and taking a bite, knowing that I had sauce all over my face. I picked up my napkin, wiping my face as Emmett laughed at me. "But that's what makes her who she is. She never took Alice's bullshit. Alice always looks down her nose at Rosie, which is funny considering she's five foot ten," I chuckled, shaking my head, "but Rosie doesn't care. Money isn't the be all and end all for Rosie. All that matters to her is the person."

"Sounds like a good woman you got there, Em." He grinned and nodded, digging back into his food. "How did you meet?"

"She went to UDub. She'd come into the place where I worked with her friends, maybe once a week. They'd take turns to pay and when it was Rosie's turn, I was their waiter and she paid the bill, and when it came to my tip, she left me her phone number on a note with the money. I couldn't believe that this blonde bombshell had given me her phone number."

"She made the first move?" He nodded, grinning. "Girl's got balls."

"I told you, she knows what she wants and she goes after what she wants."

"And what she wanted was you." I laughed and he nodded, looking slightly smug as he sat back in his chair. "What the hell did she see in you?" I laughed and he mock glared at me again, throwing one of his fries at me. All I did was laugh and pop it in my mouth. "So what happened when you took her to meet the Renfields?" He raised an eyebrow at me and I chuckled. "Renfield's is a psychotic disorder where the person is obsessed with blood." He nodded, still looking confused. "It seemed fitting."

"Well, Mom loves her. Thinks she's amazing and Dad approved of her until he found that she wasn't from a millionaire household." I rolled my eyes, not really surprised at Dad's actions. "Alice hated her from the get go. I have no idea why. She didn't really give a reason. I reckon it was because Rosie was everything Alice isn't."

"What do you mean?" I was confused.

"Well, she's tall, curvy, smart, she's her own woman, doesn't take shit from anyone, no one tells her what to do and I think Alice is jealous of that."

"Maybe it's because she knows that Rose is her own woman and Alice has always done what dad told her." I shrugged, shaking my head. "Anyway, I don't want to talk about the little demon anymore. She's making me lose my appetite." He chuckled and I popped another fry into my mouth.

"So . . . how are you, Eddie? Really?" He looked at me seriously and I smiled, knowing that my big brother was back to how he used to be. It was surprising how comforting that was to me.

"Honestly? I'm doing okay." I smiled and he raised an eyebrow at me. I laughed, shaking my head. "Things were tough after I left, I'm not gonna lie. I left in the middle of the night for a reason. It meant that I was able to find the keys to my car that dad had hidden, get the car out of the drive and make it out of there it without being seen."

"How did you manage to get those keys? Knowing dad he would have had everything locked up in his office." He asked, seeming shocked and I laughed.

"Jake is my best friend." He nodded in understanding. If there was a challenge anywhere, Jake was one of the first to take it on. Anyway, he had decided the summer before my father decided that a prisoner deserved more freedom than I did, that it was vital that I learn how to pick a lock. I was thankful that he did. I meant that I was able to get into dad's office and get my car keys from his desk. "Anyway, I managed to sneak out of the house and get out of there without them waking up."

"Wow, stealthy." He chuckled and I nodded. I had always been impressed that I'd been able to do that. "What did you do after that?"

"I just drove." I didn't stop really apart from to sleep for a few hours and get some food or refuel the car. "I'd done the same thing you had. Because I had the card, I managed to sneak out a few bucks a week. Thirty bucks or so every week. I managed to hide it from him and because it wasn't large amounts, he didn't question it. And the fact that I'd been doing that since I'd had the card when I turned thirteen, it wasn't out of the ordinary, so he didn't notice the amounts going missing." My father, essentially, was an idiot. I mean, who gives a thirteen year old their own credit card with full access to his account? My father apparently. Or maybe it was a debit card he'd had an allowance going into. I wasn't really sure. I couldn't quite remember. It didn't matter anymore.

"That was smart." He nodded and I nodded along with him, taking another sip of my drink.

"Well, thirty bucks a week for four and a half years equals around seven grand." Emmett let out a whistle and I nodded, glad that I had had the foresight to start doing that. Maybe it was my subconscious trying to tell me something. "I meant that I had a little money until I could find a job of some sort."

"And you just had that in cash?" He asked and I nodded.

"I just drove, not stopping unless I had to until I got to Arlington, Virginia." I smiled thinking about the place I'd found to live there. "When I got there, I stayed in a motel for a few days while I looked for a place. When I found one that seemed great, there was a woman, renting out a room and she was great. She reminded me of Nanna Masen." He grinned and I chuckled. "I didn't even need to explain what had happened. She told me that I had to pay rent, keep the noise down and make sure that I wasn't out at all hours of the night. I had to help out around the house, helping her with the stuff that she couldn't do anymore. General stuff, you know."

"How long did you stay with her for?"

"About two years." I sighed, thinking of the old woman that had taken me in like I was family. "I managed to get a job at Walmart in Alexandria and took up as many shifts as I could there. I took online courses for community college."

"That must have been hard." I shrugged, not really knowing what to say. I knew that I had lucked out with Mrs James. She had been one of the nicest old ladies I'd ever met. It was just a shame that her children were arrogant assholes. She'd had a bad fall about four years ago and none of them wanted to be there for her. Even though I lived in D.C., I still made time for her. "It was," I conceded and he nodded along. "But I also got my inheritance three years later as well." Emmett nodded, knowing that I would have got it when I turned twenty one.

"What happened to the woman?" He asked and I looked down at my plate.

"She had a bad fall and she wasn't able to live in her house anymore." I sighed, shaking my head, taking another gulp of my drink. "Her kids are assholes that don't give a shit. They didn't care that their mother had fallen and hurt herself. She knew that she couldn't look after herself, so I took some of the money from my inheritance and she's now in an assisted living place in D.C."

"She means a lot to you, doesn't she?" He asked and I looked up at him. His eyes were soft and I couldn't really tell what he was thinking.

"Yeah, she does." I sighed, sitting back in my chair. "She was there for me without even realising it. I needed someone there and she was there for me. She knew about my sexuality from the get go," he let out a laugh and I couldn't help but join him. "I'm not kidding. She told me and I quote 'I don't want no floozy girls round here at all hours, either'. I just told her that that wouldn't be a problem." I laughed when I thought of that conversation. "She just looked at me and said 'no floozy boys then'. I swear, my jaw was bruised for a week from where it hit the floor."

"How old was this broad?" He asked, laughing.

"She was in her sixties. She wasn't too keen on me joining the Bureau but she knew that if it was what I wanted to do, I was gonna do it and she couldn't stop me." I shook my head, remembering the day I told her I was entering into the FBI Academy. I thought her eyes were going to bug out of her head. She didn't want me to do it, thinking it was too dangerous. She didn't want me to get hurt but I managed to persuade her that it was what I wanted to do.

Normally, if she had a gut feeling about something it was usually right.

Hell, she was right about Sam.

"I wanna meet this woman." He laughed and I couldn't help but grin.

"She's something else," I sighed, looking out the window. "Come to D.C and I might be able to introduce you to her. I'm sure you can get time off from the Chief."

"That ain't the problem." He sighed, shaking his head. "The problem is convincing Rosie. We haven't been away since Nicky was born and convincing her to go away will be tough. She's not a fan of hotels."

"Who said anything about a hotel?" I asked and he raised an eyebrow at me. "I'm serious. My condo has two extra rooms. One I use as an office at the moment and one that's a spare room. It wouldn't take much to turn the office into a spare room for . . . Nicky, was it?" He nodded. "And you and Rose could have the spare room."

"You're serious, aren't you?" I nodded, not breaking eye contact.

"Emmett," I let out a breath, placing my glass in front of me and leaning forward onto the table. "After I leave here, I don't want to come back. Ever. This place just holds too many bad memories for me and I don't want to come back here. But, now that I know that you didn't know everything, I want to try and get the relationship that we had back. But I can't do it here. I can't come back here, Emmett. It's too hard."

He nodded, understand my predicament. "I get it. It's hard for you here. I don't want to lose contact with you again, Ed. I want my little brother in my life."

"I don't want to lose contact with you either, Emmett. When you stopped talking to me, it hurt. I thought that you were the one person I could count on. When I realised that I couldn't, I really felt alone." I sighed and he looked extremely guilty.

We silently decided to leave the diner, paying the check and making our way outside.

"Edward." I stopped, turning to look at him as he stood there. He stepped up to me and wrapped his arms around me in a crushing hug. I closed my eyes, burying my head into my big brothers shoulder, knowing for certain that I had him there for me now. "I'm sorry." His voice was nothing more than a whisper and I could hear the emotion in his voice.

"It's okay, Em." I said softly as he pulled away from me. "It's okay." I could see that he was going to argue, so I held up my hand, silencing him. "What's done is done. We can't go back in time and change things. All we can do is go forward from here. It's alright and it's forgiven."

"If you say so." He chuckled, blinking slightly.

"I do." I chuckled, punching his shoulder lightly. "Come on, you big baby. We have a long day tomorrow and I don't know about you but I need some sleep."

He chuckled, nodding and we climbed into his car. I told him what motel we were staying at and he laughed, joking that there wasn't really much choice in Forks. I rolled my eyes, knowing what he was talking about. There really wasn't much choice in Forks but we couldn't risk staying in Port Angeles and being an hour away if something happened with the case.

He let out a breath as we pulled up into the parking lot of the motel, looking over at me. "I'm sorry for what I said and did at the station earlier. I was just pissed about everything and I knew what I was doing was wrong. I shouldn't have acted that way towards you."

"You're right, you shouldn't have." I sighed, resting my elbow on the side of the door. "But not because of what happened between us. What I said to you was right. While we're working this case, as an FBI agent, I am your superior. You can't talk to me that way again while we're working. While we're off, brotherly rivalry and whatever applies, but when we're working, it _has_ to be professional, okay?" He nodded, understanding completely. "I told Garrett, my supervisor that we wouldn't have any problems. Don't turn me into a liar."

"Scout's honour." He held up three fingers and I rolled my eyes.

"Fuck off, Emmett." I chuckled as I opened the car door and climbed out. "You were kicked out of the boy scouts."

"I was still one!" He shouted as I closed the door, laughing.

I made my way to the door, having the door number Jasper had texted me when they checked in. Walking up to the door, I knocked lightly, seeing the light was on. Jasper answered the door with a grin on his face. "Well, with that smile, I guess everything went well?"

"Yeah, it did." I grinned, walking into the room and taking off my jacket.

"Wanna talk about it?" He asked, sitting down on the bed he'd claimed.

"You know," I sat down on the other bed, untying my shoes and pulling them off before reclining on the bed and crossing my ankles. "The last few days I think you've learned more about me than anyone else on this team has in five years. So, why don't you spill a little, Agent Hale."

He laughed gently, shaking his head as he leaned back. "Alright, what do you want to know?"

I shook my head, shrugging. "Well, how about . . . something big. I don't know. Something that's had a big impact on your life." He bit his lips before, grabbing his bag and taking his wallet out. Opening it, he smiled and dropped it on my bed at my feet. I grabbed it, opening it and seeing a picture of him and the boy I'd seen him with over the weekend. I looked up at him, feeling a questioning look appearing on my face. "Brother?"

"No." He shook his head, smiling gently. "He's my son."

Huh?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

_**I know that things aren't moving forward as quickly as some of you might like but these chapters are important.**_

_**Bear with me. We'll be getting some more information about the case soon. Trust me.**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Slight WARNING: There is descriptions of injuries the victims suffered in this chapter. If they're not something you can handle, they're marked with a ** Just skip over it.**_

_I grabbed it, opening it and seeing a picture of him and the boy I'd seen him with over the weekend. I looked up at him, feeling a questioning look appearing on my face. "Brother?"_

_"No." He shook his head, smiling gently. "He's my son."_

_Huh?_

_. . . . . . . . . . . . . ._

_**Edward**_

I was sure that my jaw hit the floor at his words.

"I'm sorry," I shook my head, looking back down at the picture in the wallet in my hand, "did you just say he's your son?" He nodded, giving me a wry smile. "He's gotta be what . . . twelve, thirteen?" I asked, noting the similarities between Jasper and the boy. They had the same blue eyes and cheeky smile, their hair was the same shade of blonde. You could definitely tell that they were related.

"Thirteen." He chuckled as I handed him his wallet back. "His mother and I were together in high school. When we were fifteen. I'm sure that you can guess that we were . . . _together_," I chuckled, nodding, knowing what he meant. It wasn't hard to guess. "Anyway, my heart was never really in it, not that anyone expects it to be when you're fifteen, but . . . I knew there was something not quite right. After we . . . _you know_ . . . I knew that I couldn't carry it on. I probably should have ended it before it got that far and I told her that. She was hurt but I think she understood where I was coming from."

"You were confused," I understood completely what he had been feeling that the time. I knew because I'd been through it myself when I was in high school.

"Completely." He sighed, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his bent knees. "It took her a few weeks but we became friends again. It was then that she discovered that she was pregnant. Our parents hit the roof, of course and I knew that I wanted to be there for the baby. I managed to get a park time job at a local convenience store and starting saving as much as I could. It took me a long time to get used to the idea but when he came along, I knew that I would do anything for him. To keep him safe. Make sure that he knew he was loved, even if his parents were stupid teenagers that didn't know what the hell they were doing. Nothing was too good for Jeremy."

I couldn't help but smile at the love in Jasper's voice. "Where's he now? With his mom?"

"Yeah." He sighed, looking back down at the photograph. "We have joint custody of him. Maria got married seven years ago and her husband has just got a job with at the Pentagon." I let out a whistle and he nodded, smirking slightly. "Guy nearly passed out when he got the offer. They had to move here and I knew that I couldn't just stay in Houston while my son was nearly fifteen hundred miles away. Already being with the Bureau, I decided to look into a transfer. It was after you and Victoria did your 'Microscope on Monsters' seminar in Houston last year that I really became interested in the BAU."

"Wait," I sat up straight, looking straight at him. "You were at that seminar?" He nodded, smiling gently. "I thought you were white collar."

"I was." He shrugged and I was even more confused than before. "I was interested in what you seemed to be talking about and so I thought I'd go and find out what it was all about. After that day, I became even more interested in what you guys did and did my research, managed to take the classes before moving over here, got transferred into the BAU and the rest is history."

"You'll be away from home a lot." I warned him and he let out a laugh, looking at me. "But you've probably figured that out already." He nodded, opening his wallet again. "It might put a strain on your relationship with him. There might be chances that you're gonna miss things that are important to him."

"I know and I've explained that to him. He wasn't happy about it but I think he realises that what I do is important." He smiled and I nodded.

"You're helping to stop killers and save people's lives." I said softly and he nodded.

"I know and I've explained that to Jeremy. I just hope he remembers that when I miss a soccer game or two." He chuckled and I smiled, shaking my head. "That big enough for you?"

"I'd say so." I laughed and he grinned. "Not what I was expecting." I let out a breath, shaking my head. "I was expecting, I don't know, bad break up or something. Not the fact that you have a teenager."

"Well, thought I'd try and keep you on your toes." I had to hand it to him. He'd certainly done that. "He's thirteen going on thirty."

"Aren't they all?"

"True. He's a great kid but he can be a smartass when he wants to be. He always had an answer for everything, He talked back but not in the mouthy way. In the kind of 'I'm taking in everything you say, so you can't pull one over on me' kind of way."

"Yeah, I think I used to do that, myself."

"I can see that." I pretended to be offended and he laughed, not buying it. "I don't think I could have had a better kid than if I'd personally filled out a form myself." I laughed at the thought of Jasper sitting there, filling out a preference form for what he wanted in a child. "So, now you know my big bad secret," he chuckled and I shook my head, before getting off the bed and making my way to the small bathroom the motel room had attached. "Time for bed?" I nodded and he grinned, grabbing his things out of his bag.

I locked the door and let out a breath. Looking in the mirror I knew that when I had seen Jasper, the boy and the woman over the weekend, I had absolutely no clue or even thought that he could be his son. I had thought a younger brother, nephew or maybe even a step-son or girlfriends son. Of course, knowing that he was gay made that easier, even if he hadn't come out and actually said it – no pun intended – his admitting that he had been confused while with Maria and knowing that she wasn't what he needed.

We were learning more about each other, although, his past seemed to have a better outcome than mine did. He might have made a mistake and gotten a girl pregnant but I could see in his face and hear in his voice that he would never turn back time and change his decision, even if he had the chance. He loved his son. That much was evident.

I quickly changed into my sleep pants and a wife beater before making my way back out into the main room. I saw that Jasper had changed as well and was now lying under the covers of his chosen bed. I turned off the light, climbing into bed myself.

I let out a breath, closing my eyes and flopping back onto the pillow. "Edward?" Jasper called softly from across the other side of the room.

"Hmm?"

"Thank you."

"For what?"

"For listening." I could hear the sigh that came out of him and I opened my eyes, unable to see him lying in his bed. "For not judging."

"Of course." I whispered, closing my eyes again. "You've found out a lot of shit about me over the last few days. I'm not sure there's much you haven't found out." I let out a dry laugh, turning onto my side.

"There is one thing I know."

"And what's that?"

"He's an idiot."

"Huh?" I lifted my head up, wondering what the hell he was talking about.

"The one who hurt you." He clarified and I could feel his gaze, even through the darkness and it clicked, what he was talking about. "He's an idiot."

How the hell could he know about Sam?

. . . . . . . . . . . .

We walked into the station at eight thirty the next morning and I saw that Charlie and Emmett as well as Charlie's officers were already there.

"Alright," Garrett managed to get their attention and we made ourselves comfortable on the desks. "This is just a preliminary profile. It's not exact, it's just a guideline."

"The unsub we're looking for is a white male, late twenties to early thirties. He most likely drives a pickup, which will also be his method of moving the bodies of his victims." Victoria looked around at the officers in the room in front of her.

"Now, he's most likely had some form of personal loss recently, even as little as four or five weeks ago, just before the murders started," Jake carried on, "divorce, loss of a loved one, parent, child, spouse, any of these things could have acted as a stressor."

"And the main thing you have to remember, that you might not want accept," I turned, looking at the others in the room. "He is most likely a member of the Forks community. An outsider, someone new in town would stand out, would be noticed but he blends in. It's most likely that he grew up here. He's someone you know, someone trust, someone you wouldn't think twice about letting look after your kids or help you with your groceries. He's someone you see every day. I know it sounds cliché but he is someone you would least expect."

Charlie and Garrett immediately split us off into teams, Charlie sorting out his offers and Garrett getting Jake and Tanya were to stay at the station and go through the financial records of the victims, Victoria and Garrett were going to travel into Port Angeles to check out the clinic while he sent Jasper and I to the hospital to discover the ME's findings.

We pulled up into the hospital parking lot and I let out a breath. Jasper turned off the engine and turned to look at me. "You okay?" He asked and I turned to look at him.

"As ready as I'll ever be." I chuckled, no humour in my tone at all and I knew he could hear that. "There's a high chance that he'll try and butt his nose in as soon and often as possible. I'm just going to ignore him as best as possible and I suggest you do the same."

"Really?" He asked, clearly not sure about my words.

"He might be Chief of Staff at this hospital but my father has no business injecting himself into the investigation." I looked up at the entrance again before letting out a puff of air and climbing out of the car. "He'll try to play the big man but he's not stupid. At least he wasn't before I left. He knows why we're here. And if he is stupid enough to try and get involved, we can just put him back in his place."

"I don't want to create any waves here." Jasper sounded unsure and I knew that he wasn't really sure about confronting my father.

"Waves?" I laughed as we walked into the lobby of the hospital. "That man created tsunami's before I left. He's makes his own waves. Especially where he's not needed."

"Alright," he still didn't sound sure and I could understand why. My father was an 'upstanding member of Forks' society' and he didn't want to make any enemies when we were trying to solve this case.

"Don't worry. There's nothing he can do." I tried to reassure him but from the look on his face, he still didn't believe me. "All he can do is blow smoke. He can't actually do anything."

"I think I'll let you deal with that if it comes to it." He chuckled and I rolled my eyes.

"Gee, thanks." I muttered, walking up to the reception desk. "Hi, we're here to see Dr Banner." I showed the receptionist my badge as Jasper pulled his out. She took a look at my badge, her eyes widening.

"Edward?" I wasn't surprised that she knew who I was but it took a moment for her to click in my head.

"Sue?" I couldn't help but grin as I recognised the older woman sat in front of me. "How've you been?"

"I've been good," she grinned, standing up and leaning over the desk to give me a hug, laughing as she did so. "I'd heard that you were back in town. Damn, you look good. If only I were thirty years younger." I raised an eyebrow and she laughed waving me off. "Anyway, it was Dr Banner you wanted, yes?" I nodded and she picked up the phone.

"Someone's a prodigal son around town, huh?" Jasper chuckled and I rolled my eyes again. "Seems that you were missed."

"Well, it doesn't matter now." I sighed, resting my elbow on the counter of the reception desk.

"Dr Banner will be with you in a few minutes boys." We nodded, moving to the side as others came up to the reception desk, clearly arriving for appointments or whatever they had to do here.

"So, do you know everyone here?" He asked and I had to smile. Jasper had grown up in the city of Houston, not really knowing much about the dynamics of growing up in a small town.

"Pretty much." I sighed, looking around at the people milling about the hospital, staff, patients and visitors alike. "When you grow up in a town this small, everyone knows each other or at least knows _of_ each other. It's hard to stay unnoticed." He thought about that for a moment and I smirked. "Let's put it this way. The whole town would have known that we were in town, maybe . . . an hour, hour and a half tops after we arrived." He raised an eyebrow and I nodded. "Remember what I said yesterday? One person sees something, they tell their friends, who tell family and other friends, who pass it on. Things spread like wildfire here. Everyone knows that the FBI is in town by now."

"Fair enough." He shrugged and I laughed. "So can we expect nosy townsfolk to ask about the investigation?"

I shrugged, not really knowing. "Maybe. Pretty much everyone grew up together so they're pretty tight knit. Best thing to say is that we're working on it but can't say anything at the moment." He nodded, knowing the procedure.

But it wasn't the townsfolk injecting themselves that I was worried about.

"Agents." We turned to see Dr Banner walking towards us. He held out his hand and we both shook it before following him silently down the hallway to his examination room. I always felt a chill when I walked into these kinds of rooms. The death in the air was palpable and it wasn't something I liked too much. From the look on his face, Jasper wasn't too keen on it either.

"What can you tell us?" Jasper asked as we sat down in front of his desk.

**"The wounds from all four victims were consistent." He handed the both of us a file. "All four had blunt force trauma to the back of the head, non fatal-"

"Enough to cause unconsciousness?" I asked and he nodded.

"Most likely." He leaned forward over the file on his desk. "The ligature marks around the victim's wrists and ankles were made ante mortem, meaning that they were restrained before they were killed. COD was a deep cut to the throat severing the carotid artery."

"Any signs of sexual assault?" Jasper asked, looking through the pages in his file.

"Not essentially," he sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Each had stab wounds to their reproductive organs." I looked up at him, an eyebrow raised. "Both of the men had a single stab wound to the testicles, penetrating right into the body," I subconsciously flinched at his words and from the slight look of discomfort on his face, Jasper was thinking the same thing, "and both of the women had significant stab wound damage to their lower abdomens, specifically the uterus."

I took a deep breath, resting my head in my hand as I closed the file.**

"Edward?" I turned to face Jasper and saw the worried look on his face. "You okay?" I nodded, swallowing thickly. "This kind of supports what Mike told you yesterday." I looked back over to him. "You said that Mike told you Jessica had visited a clinic on the Tuesday before she died, right?" I nodded and he followed suit. "Well, if all of the victims made the same trip, we've got our link."

I nodded and we all stood up. "Thank you for your help." I held out my hand and he gave me a wry smile.

"Anything I can do to help." He nodded, shaking both mine and Jasper's hands before we walked out of the room.

Walking down to the lobby we talked about the significance that the link through the clinic could have and that it could narrow down the suspect pool at least a little.

I glanced up from the file as we walked into the lobby and let out a groan upon seeing who was standing at the reception desk. Jasper noticed and stopped, looking at me strangely.

"What is it?" I shook my head, letting out a frustrated sigh. He glanced at the man at the desk before looking back at me. "Who is that?"

"My father." I gave him a sarcastic smile and he looked back toward the reception desk.

"He's walking this way." He muttered and I nodded.

"I guessed. I knew couldn't avoid him forever."

"You just hoped to." It wasn't a question but I nodded anyway. "Want me to stick around?"

"Please." I whispered, not wanting to be left alone with this man. He might have been my father but he lost all rights to tell me to do anything when he decided to try and control my life.

"Well, look who finally decided to come home." I rolled my eyes at his words, letting out a puff of air before turning to face him.

"This place isn't my home." I replied shortly. "Not anymore. You made sure of that."

"I'm intrigued to find out how you came to that conclusion." He crossed his arms, trying to stare me down. It might have worked when I was teenager and didn't know any better but now I'd seen more than I had ever really wanted to. More frightening things than what this man used to be to me.

I let out a hollow laugh. "Please," I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. "So, it wasn't you that decided to hijack my school schedule to the classes you wanted me to take or fill up _every single second_ of my time with useless bullshit that I have never and will never use because it was what you thought was necessary? It wasn't you that decided where I was gonna go, what I was gonna do, how I was going to live my life? You didn't try to set me up with _girls_ that you thought were acceptable even though you knew that they would hold absolutely no interest for me at all?" I stepped towards him, stopping right in front of him. "It wasn't you that tried to control every aspect of my life?"

All of these were rhetorical questions but I knew that he would answer them anyway. "I was trying to give you the best possible life-"

"By alienating me from my friends, by making sure that I was all alone. No, that wasn't the 'best possible life'. That was trying to keep me under your control. How did that work out for you?" I smirked, shaking my head at him. "You spent two years making sure that you knew where I was every single minute of the day and still . . . I managed to get away from you and build a life on my own, without your money, your name or your reputation. You had absolutely nothing to do with where I am now. Bet you're not too happy about that, are you?"

He didn't answer me, just like I knew he wouldn't. He looked down at the file that was in my hand, seeing the name of the hospital on them, glaring back up at me. "You're not allowed to remove those from hospital premises."

"Actually," I looked down at the files, smirking back up at him, "I think you'll find I can. And . . . if you try and stop me or if you stick your nose into what is happening at the moment, I will have you for interfering in a federal investigation, understood?" I started to walk away from him, Jasper walking closely behind me. "Oh and don't for a second think that because we're related, I'll be giving you leeway or let you in because that will not be happening. In actuality, I'm going to be warning my team to ignore you completely." His gaze became murderous at the thought of being locked out of the investigation. "You're not in control anymore."

I turned and walked away from him and I could see Jasper's smirk from the corner of my eye and I couldn't help but smile myself as we walked out to the car.

Closing the door to the car I let out a breath, along with a laugh that I hadn't realised wanted to come out. Jasper looked at me, raising his eyebrows, clearly wondering if I'd lost my mind.

"You okay?" He asked, his voice wary and I nodded, still chuckling.

"I'm just amazed that I didn't punch him, to be honest." I laughed and he looked confused. "You don't seem to understand the hate I have for that man. There are no words for how much I despise him. He makes me want to find out how the other half live." I warned and he nodded in understanding.

"Don't worry," he chuckled, starting the car. "I won't let that happen."

"Thank you." I put on my seatbelt, not sorry to be leaving the hospital behind. My phone started vibrating in my pocket and I pulled it out, seeing Garrett's name on the display. "Yeah, Garrett."

"_We have her."_

"Her?" I looked at Jasper, who looked at me, confused. "Hang on a sec, I'm gonna put you on speaker." I flicked the speakerphone button so that Jasper could hear what he was saying. "Do you mean that this unsub is female?"

"Exactly that." That was unusual. "But she must have had help."

"Who've you got?"

"Her name is McKenna Gardner." The name sounded familiar but I couldn't remember where from. "She has and her brother have a registered address which is a small cabin halfway between Forks and Port Angeles. Sending you the location through now. We'll meet you there."

"Got it." I ended the call and Jasper looked at me, smirking. I could see that there were cars on the road in front of us and we needed to be on the road quickly. I reached up and flicked the switch, turning on the lights and sirens, making sure that people knew that we were coming. "Ready?" I asked, leaning across into the back and grabbing our vests as I slipped my jacket on and pulled mine on. Jasper wouldn't be able to put his on until we reached the address but I figured it saved time.

"You betcha." He grinned and I couldn't agree more.

Let's hope we got the right person.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .


	8. Chapter 8

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Just to warn you all, after this weekend, updates might not be as frequent as I'm starting a new job on Monday. Just letting you know so you don't get too used to the frequent updates.**_

_**Anyways, enjoy.**_

"_Ready?" I asked, leaning across into the back and grabbing our vests as I slipped my jacket on and pulled mine on. Jasper wouldn't be able to put his on until we reached the address but I figured it saved time._

"_You betcha." He grinned and I couldn't agree more._

_Let's hope we got the right person._

_**Edward**_

I sat back in the seat, grabbing my glock, making sure it was loaded and ready to go. Jasper chuckled, shaking his head and I smirked at him. I shrugged, not really caring before holstering my gun and watching out of the window for the driveway Garrett had mentioned.

I noticed the car on the side of the road and nodded to Jasper. He nodded, slowing and pulling over to the side. I saw Jake and the others waiting for the two of us to join them, along with Charlie and his officers. Emmett looked antsy and I rolled my eyes at his fidgeting.

We walked over to the group, Jasper slipping his jacket off and dropping it in the car and slipping on his vest as he walked.

"The cabin's not too far from the road, it would be better for us to go on foot, less warning. We don't want to risk her hearing us and making a break for it." We nodded along with Garrett's words.

"Are you sure about this?" I asked, wondering if they had their information accurate. "I mean, these victims, none of them were exactly small and they all had to be moved a considerable distance from where they were taken."

"She has a brother that that may have assisted." I nodded, knowing that they must have had Bree looking into every angle.

"I thought you guys were going to Port Angeles." Jasper asked as we started our way down the short driveway.

"We were almost to the clinic when Bree got back to us with the staff names and rotas. Edward was right, all of the victims had had an appointment at the clinic on the Monday or Tuesday before they died. All of them were there about birth control." Garrett looked at all of us and I could see the others piecing together what was going on in my head. It had something to do with the ability to have children.

"Bree went through all of the staff rotas for when the victims went in and found that there was only one person that was on shift when they went in." Victoria followed on and we all nodded.

"Makenna Gardner." She nodded, looking grim.

"Bree did some background on her." Garrett continued, gesturing for us to approach the house. "She'd been working at the clinic for four years but nine months ago, she was in a car accident. She was pregnant at the time." Shit. That wasn't good news. "The wounds that she'd sustained were relatively minor but she was driving at the time and the force of the impact caused damage to her abdomen and she lost the baby. Bree was able to access her medical records from when she was admitted to the hospital and to save her life she had to have a hysterectomy. She was married but they separated following the accident and her husband filed for divorce a little over four weeks ago."

"That matches up with when the killings started." Charlie appeared next to him, clearly having been filled in before we arrived.

"What about the husband?" I asked, turning towards Garrett who shook his head.

"Bree did some background on him as well. He moved to Portland three weeks ago. Credit cards records show that he hasn't left the city since he moved there."

"Trying to escape." Jasper muttered, running a hand through his hair.

"But she couldn't." I sighed and the others nodded.

"And there are people in and out of that clinic for appointments for birth control." Tanya said softly, looking upset. She was trying to school her features to appear impassive about the situation but we all knew that she and her husband, Marcus had been having trouble conceiving and it had taken a toll on her.

"So we made a detour to the courthouse and got a warrant from the judge to search her house."

"And you got one?" I asked, surprise. Normally, it required physical evidence for obtain a warrant.

"Well, with four victims, time closing on the possibility of another one and the chance that these four aren't her only victims, in the area, he was quite happy to sign it for us." I nodded, smirking knowing that if Garrett wanted something, nothing would stop him from getting it.

"What's the story on the brother?" I asked, remembering that he had been mentioned earlier.

"Alistair Gardner, returned six weeks ago from a tour in Iraq after an honourable discharge. He's been living with his sister since then. Getting his military records are harder for Bree to do but if it's possible, she can do it."

We slowed as we got closer to the cabin, seeing that there were two cars parked out front. As we approached, a man walked out of the front door with a trash bag.

"He looks like he could carry dead weight." I glanced at Emmett, nodding with his thoughts. The guy wasn't small. It didn't look like it would be a problem for him to carry a considerable weight. I was guessing that this was Alistair Gardner.

We didn't conceal ourselves as we walked down and I heard a vehicle moving behind us. I knew that it was one of Charlie's officers cruisers because there wouldn't be any other vehicle allowed down the stretch at that moment in time. He looked up, clearly seeing the bright 'FBI' printed on our vests and he dropped the bag and made a run for it.

"Alistair Gardner, FBI!" Garrett shouted and we all split up, knowing where we would be needed. Jake, Jasper and Garrett went after Alistair whereas the uniformed officers, Victoria and I approached the house. I directed the officers to head around the back in case she had heard Garrett's declaration and followed in her brothers footsteps and made a break for it.

I held my gun out in front of me, quietly turning the door knob and opening the door gently, trying not to make too much noise. I glanced at Emmett, nodding that I was going to head into the house and I wanted him to cover me. I stepped inside the house, slowly moving through the rooms, hearing the officers behind me, clearing the rooms.

I walked into the dining room, seeing a woman sitting in a chair in the conservatory. I stepped through the door, my gun levelled at her. She didn't move, seemingly unaware that I was even there.

"Makenna Gardner?" She looked up at me, her expression completely unsurprised that I was there, pointing a gun at her. "FBI. You're under arrest for suspicion of murder."

She sighed, looking back out of the window. "Is it a crime to kill those who would kill others?"

"Yes." I answered simply and she looked up at me, her expression showing that she wasn't expecting me to say that. Apparently, she had deluded herself into believing that she was doing something good.

"Agent Cullen?" I turned, seeing one of Charlie's officers waving me over.

"Emmett?" I turned and he nodded, stepping towards Makenna. "Yeah," I turned, holstering my gun, walking back through the kitchen and back out onto the deck where Alistair had dropped the bag. "What you got?"

He motioned towards the bag and I grabbed some gloves, slipping them on before opening the bags. I reached in, pulling out a woman's shirt, covered in blood, letting out a breath.

"Bag it for evidence." He nodded and I dropped the shirt back into the bag. I looked over at where Garrett, Jake and Jasper were bringing Alistair back over to the house.

"Kennie!" I heard Alistair shouting as Emmett brought Makenna out of the house in cuffs and lead her down to the cruiser, pushing her inside. "Kennie!" She didn't even acknowledge that he was there and the look on his face was one of devastation. If there wasn't a chance he was involved in the murders of some of my friends and maybe more people that hadn't been from Forks, I might have felt a little bad for him.

As it was, I couldn't find it in me to.

I stood there, waiting for the others as another cruiser pulled up and they shoved him in the back, following the other one to the station.

"Forks or Port Angeles?" I asked Charlie and he sighed, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Because the murders were in Forks, we'll be dealing with the two of them." He looked over at me and I smiled, practically feeling his relief. "You guys gonna stick around?"

"Yeah." I turned to face him head on. "Charlie, I think it's best if we do the questioning." He opened his mouth to argue but I held a hand up. "I know you want to find out what's going on but you're too close to the case. We have a better chance at getting answers out of the two of them."

"What about you?" He asked and I knew what he was asking me. I had grown up here, they had been my friends, my classmates.

"I know that I grew up here, but you have to remember, I haven't been here in eleven years. It's easier for me to remain objective because I don't see Forks as my home anymore. Yes, I care about some of the people here but I don't see it as the place I belong anymore." He nodded, letting out a breath.

"Edward?" I looked up at him. "Find out why they did this." I nodded, clapping him on the shoulder before making my way over to the rest of my team.

"I've told Charlie that it might be better for us to handle the questioning." I told Garrett and he nodded, leading the group back to the SUV's. We pulled off our vests before climbing into the car and turning around, following the cruisers back to Forks.

"You reckon they're gonna talk?" Jasper asked and I sighed, shaking my head.

"I don't know." I looked out the window, resting my elbow on the small ledge by the window. "When I found her sitting there, she didn't react at all to the fact that there was a gun pointed at her. I mean, that would rattle most people, right?" He nodded. "She didn't even seem to notice. We need to find out what she was like at work. Garrett said that she'd just lost a baby, right?"

"Yeah."

"I think that's a major starting point." I mumbled and he nodded, hearing me in the confined space.

We both withdrew into our own minds as we travelled back to Forks, both of us distracted by the thought that we might have caught the person or persons responsible.

Pulling up to the station, the two of us climbed out of the car and walked inside. The others were arriving at the same time and Charlie was waiting for us as we walked into the building.

"They're both in interrogation rooms, waiting for you guys." He nodded and I turned to Garrett.

"I want to interview Makenna. " I told him calmly and precisely. He studied me for a moment before he nodded. "Thank you."

I grabbed the file that Charlie held out to me, the one holding all of the information I'd need. It had the crime scene photographs of the victims, all of the notes that had been taken. I walked into the room and she looked up at me, looking slightly scared. Seems that instinct had finally kicked in for her.

"How you doing, Makenna?" I asked, dropping the file on the table and taking a seat across the table from her. She looked at me confused and I couldn't blame her. Not an hour ago, I'd had a gun pointed at her and now I was asking her how she was doing. I'd be a little confused as well.

She shrugged, wrapping her arms around herself, looking down at the table.

"Makenna, I need to ask you some questions, okay?" She nodded, clenching her upper arms. "Okay." I opened the file and pulled out the portraits we had of the victims. "Do you know these people?" She nodded, looking at the pictures, her eyes welling up. "How do you know them?"

"They um . . . they came into the clinic I work at." Her voice was so soft, she was almost inaudible.

"Do you know why they came in?" She nodded. "Why?"

"They all . . . they all wanted some kind of birth control." Her jaw clenched at her own words and I made a note of that.

"And that upset you?"

"Being able to have children is a gift." She looked up at me, her eyes hard. "No one should get rid of it."

I sighed, leaning forward on the desk. "Did you know anything about these people? About their situations?" She looked at me, confused. "I mean, did you know that Jessica Newton," I placed my finger on her picture, "has a two year old daughter and a four month old baby boy?" I looked up at her, watching as that information sank in, "or that Angela Cheney that had a heart problem, which meant that if she got pregnant, she could die," I moved my finger again, resting it on Eleazar Dwight, had a family history of Bipolar Disorder or that Eric Yorkie, had a low sperm count, so he wasn't actually at the clinic about birth control. He was just there for a check-up to see what could be done. He _wanted_ children but he wasn't able to have them." I watched her expression closely. "Just like you."

Her head snapped up, glaring at me. "You don't know anything about me." Her voice wasn't that quiet, soft tone she'd used only moments before. It was hard and cold and I could now see the woman that could be motivated to kill.

"I know that you were pregnant." I sat back in my seat, watching her. "And that you were in an accident which caused you to lose the baby." Her breaths became short and rapid and I could see that I was getting to her. "And that they had to perform a hysterectomy so save your life as well."

"I wish they hadn't." She muttered, still glaring at me.

"But they did." I laced my fingers together, resting my arms on the desk again. "They saved your life and they took your womb. I bet that made you feel . . . inadequate? Less of a woman? Am I right?"

"Shut up." Her words were a growl and I inwardly smirked.

"I guess I am." I opened the file again, pulling out the crime scene photographs, placing them over the top of the portraits. "Even if that happened, what right did you have to do this to these people? What right did you have to decide whether or not these people lived or died? What right did you have?"

"They were killing innocent babies!" Her voice rose and I shook my head.

"No, they weren't. Jessica already had two, Angela would have died if she tried to have children, Eleazar Dwight had a family history he didn't want to pass on and Eric couldn't have children. Neither of the women were pregnant and none of them were planning to have children."

"No one should give up the power to give life." She muttered, resuming her position earlier. "The power to give life is something everyone should see as a gift. And no one should even think about getting rid of it, not using it."

"Well," I leaned back in my chair, holding her gaze as she looked up at me. "I'm not going to have children. Does that mean that I need to die?"

"No." Her eyes widened in surprise and I shrugged. "Of course not, why would you think that?"

"Well, you just said that having children is a gift and that no one should think about not using it. The people that you murdered either weren't able to have children or where going to give up having children. You made the decision that they had to die because of it. I'm not going to have children. So, shouldn't that mean that I have to die as well."

"That's not how it was."

"Then how was it? Tell me because I really want to know."

"They were actively looking to give up what they had been blessed with." She was getting worked up and that was exactly where I wanted her to be. "They were looking to give up what had been taken from others. It wasn't fair that they had that choice when I had mine taken from me!"

"So it was fair for you to take their lives?"

"It was justice for what they were going to do." She snarled and I smirked. "It was justice for the lives they were giving up. No one else was going to do anything about it so I had to. I had to let everyone know that you just can't do that without there being consequences."

"Yeah, well, after that little confession the consequences that you face are at best, life without parole, at worst, the needle." Her eyes widened as I stood up, gathering the photos and walking out of the room. "Did you get that?" They nodded, indicating that they had her confession recorded. "Got anywhere with the brother?"

"Jake's in with him now." Jasper said as he walked over to me, two cups of the stations crappy coffee in his hand, passing one to me. "From what he's got already, he could see that his sister was in pain and he wanted to help her. He didn't want her to get in trouble so he cleaned up after her and disposed of the bodies."

"How come you didn't mention the brother or the husband?" Victoria asked, making me jump slightly. I hadn't even realised she was there.

"Because mentioning the two of them would have taken her attention away from what she had done." I replied, contemplating whether or not to finish or just toss the coffee. "I wanted her to focus on the lives she had taken and get her to admit that she killed them. Bringing up her brother or her husband would have deflected from that and distracted her attention from what was in front of her."

I let out a sigh, running my hand through my hair and taking a sip of the god awful coffee. He chuckled as I blanched at the taste and I glared at him which made him laugh even more.

"Right, we're charging them both. Makenna with four counts of murder and Alistair with accessory to murder after the fact." Charlie sighed and we all nodded, knowing that she would probably need some kind of therapy. I doubted she had had any after she'd lost the baby. Maybe if she had, she might not have had the urge to take the lives of four people.

"Okay, you have it all under control?" Garrett asked Charlie and the Chief nodded. "We're going to head back to Quantico as soon as possible. Let us know if you need anything."

"Garrett," I called to him and he turned to look at me. "I've got some loose ends to tie up here. I'm gonna get a commercial flight back to Virginia in a couple of days. I won't be needed before then, will I?"

"Alright," He nodded, placing a hand on my shoulder. "As long as you can get all of the documentation for this case written up when you get back."

"Of course." I nodded and Jasper gave me a smile.

"You gonna be alright here on your own?" He asked, placing a hand on my arm gently.

I looked over towards my brother, who raised an eyebrow at me, before smiling and turning back to the conversation he was having with another one of the officers. "I'm not alone." Jasper glanced at Emmett, smiling. "But thanks."

"Anytime." His voice was soft as he squeezed my arm gently before following Garrett out to the cars.

"Hey, bro." I turned to see Emmett watching me. "Instead of going back to the motel, why don't you stay with me and Rosie?"

"You sure about that?" I asked, slightly dubious but he laughed, waving me off.

"Of course." His expression took my back to him being the annoying brother he'd always been. "I had a feeling that you might stay, even though you said and I believe that you meant you didn't want to be here longer than you had to, so I mentioned to Rosie that you might stay in our guest room for a few days or so. She wants to meet you."

"From what I've heard I want to meet her too." I grinned at Emmett and he whacked me on the shoulder. "Thanks, Emmett. I've just got something I need to do first." He nodded, looking a little confused.

I quickly made my way to the motel, packing up my stuff and checking out with the rest of the team before heading in the opposite direction.

I climbed out of the car and walked up to the house, knocking on the door gently. I shoved my hands in my pockets as I waited for the door to be answered.

"Edward?" I looked up, seeing Mike standing in front of me. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, Mike." I smiled up at him. "Yeah, it is." He shook his head, not understanding what I was doing, standing there. "We got them."

"What?"

"We got them, Mike." I said softly and he seemed to sag, leaning against the doorframe. "It's over." His head dropped into his hands and I could see that he was trying to hold back tears as he looked up at me again.

"Thank you."

. . . . . . . . . . . .


	9. Chapter 9

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Edward**_

I stayed with Mike for a couple of hours. He had a lot of questions but because the investigation was still ongoing, I couldn't tell him anything about it. All I could tell him was that those responsible had been caught and no one else would get hurt.

I could see that he wasn't really satisfied with my answers but he also knew that I couldn't say anything else before the case had been closed. He wanted answers and I could see that. But I wasn't able to give them to him.

Climbing into the car, I pulled out my phone, hitting the number Emmett had programmed into my phone before we parted ways the night before.

"_Yo!"_

"Hey, moron." I laughed as he gasped, trying to sound offended. Didn't really work. "So where would your house be?"

"It's on Quinault." He chuckled and I could hear him moving. "You'll know which one it is."

"How's that?"

"There's a bright red Cadillac in the driveway." He chuckled and I rolled my eyes. "And before you do that eye rolling thing, it's Rosie's."

"I need to hear that story." I chuckled, sliding the keys into the ignition. "Well, I'll be there if a few."

"See you in a bit, man." I pulled the phone away from my ear, hearing my brother calling my name from the other end. "You haven't eaten yet, have you?"

"Nope."

"Good, 'cause Rosie's making dinner." He sounded like he was drooling already. "You still like lasagne, right?"

"Yeah." It had been years since I'd had a decent lasagne. A decent _homemade_ lasagne anyway. "Is that what she's making?"

"Uh-huh."

"Garlic bread?"

"Mmhmmm . . ."

"_Homemade _garlic bread."

"Duh."

"I think I might have fallen in love with your wife and I haven't even met her yet."

"Yo! Hands off, bro!" That woke him up. "Get your own wife! Or husband. Whatever." I laughed as he tried to figure out what he wanted to say. He was sufficiently distracted by the thought of food and I knew that he would go quiet and think about his food. I told him that I was going to hang up now and did so before he could say anything.

I threw my phone onto the passenger seat as I chuckled, shaking my head and making my way out onto the street. I turned out onto Calawah, smiling at some of the better memories that I'd had in Forks before I'd fallen to my father's control, before I turned onto Prairie Drive. I slowed down as I approached Quinault Street, immediately seeing the bright red car Emmett had mentioned as I turned the corner. There was an enormous Hummer in the driveway alongside it and I chuckled at Emmett's ostentatious taste. He hadn't lost his love of size.

I wasn't going to mention that though for fear of Emmett's jokes.

They were something I'd never get used to, no matter how long I'd be around him.

I parked on the street outside the house, grabbing my phone and overnight bag before pulling the keys out of the ignition and exiting the car. I walked up the drive and jumped as the door was flung open and Emmett stood there with a boy of around four hanging around his neck. Emmett had an arm tucked underneath him, making sure he didn't fall as he looked like he was trying to climb Emmett like he was a jungle-gym.

"Eddie!" Emmett grinned and I rolled my eyes at his words, tucking my phone into the pocket of my pants, laughing at his expression. "Nicky, say hi to your Uncle Eddie."

"Uncle Eddie!" The little boy grinned before throwing himself out of Emmett's arms and at me. I flung out my arms, dropping my bag and catching him as he slammed into my chest. "Hi!"

"O-kay!" I wheezed, trying to catch my breath, steadying the little boy in my arms, allowing him to settle on my hip as I held him securely. "Hi. I'm guessing you're Nicky, right?" He grinned, nodding in the exaggerated way that little children do. "Well, it's nice to meet you, Nicky."

"Hi." He repeated, giggling as he wrapped his arms around my neck and rested his head on my shoulder.

I looked at Emmett as he watched his little boy, unadulterated love in his eyes. "Does this mean I'm all good?"

He chuckled, nodding. "Yeah, even though he's only four, Nicky's a good judge of character." He stepped forward, raising his arms. "Want me to take him?"

"Nah, he's alright." I looked down at the little boy, who seemed pretty relaxed in my arms. Emmett shrugged, gesturing for me to follow him inside the house, chuckling at his little boy.

"Rosie?" He called out as he closed the door behind me. "Eddie's here. And he's made a new best friend."

I heard shoes clicking against the hardwood floor in the hallway and after looking at the little boy on my shoulder, thumb now in his mouth I turned to look at her, seeing the woman from the photograph. Even as a gay man I could admit that she was gorgeous.

She was an Amazonian woman, curvy and voluptuous and I could see her being the centre of attention wherever she went. No wonder Alice hated her. She was everything Alice wasn't. I could see that what Emmett had told me was right. She looked like a woman that would hold her own in a confrontation and would sooner kick you in the balls than bow down and take what you had to give her.

She watched me, her ice blue eyes silently judging me, clearly trying to judge whether or not I was welcome in her house. I met her gaze, not wavering under the stare she gave me and she smiled, her expression softening.

"He's cuter than the pictures you have of him, Emmett." She chuckled and I couldn't help but join her. "Well, if Nicky's that relaxed with you then you must be alright."

"Well, for that I'm glad." I looked down at the four year old that now had his eyes closed as he sucked on his thumb. "He supposed to have his thumb in his mouth?" I asked and she chuckled, shaking her head.

"Not really but it's kind of a security thing when he meets new people. Though you seem to be alright with him."

I couldn't help but smile at the fact that I'd just met my nephew and he already seemed relaxed enough around me to lean into me.

My head shot up as a flash went off in front of me and the little body in my arms whined, clearly not happy about the bright light either. I raised an eyebrow at my brother who was grinning, with a camera in his hands.

"Oh, come here, baby." Rosalie walked over to the two of us, wrapping her arms around the little boy and trying to get him away from me. Unfortunately, he whined and held on tighter. "Hey, it's time to let Edward go." He shook his head, grumbling and I laughed.

"It's alright." I looked down at him. "You're alright, aren't you?" He looked up at me, his eyes wide as his thumb stayed in his mouth. "But you're going to have to let go when we have to have dinner, okay?" He pouted at me and I shrugged, trying not to jostle him too much. "Well, I don't about you but I've heard how good your mommy's cooking is and I'm hungry and you know what?" He shook his head. "I need my hands to eat and if I'm holding you . . . I can't eat and then I'll get _even hungrier_. You don't want Uncle Eddie to get really, _really_ hungry, do you?" His eyes widened as he shook his head, his hand moving along with it and I chuckled.

"Alright, well dinner will be ready in twenty minutes, so Emmett, if you could show your brother through to the living room." She asked sweetly and I knew in that moment that it was not a request but a politely made demand. I'd worked out who wore the pants in the relationship.

I followed Emmett through to the living room where I sat down on the sofa. Or should I say, I flopped down, gravity working against me with the little limpet in my arms. He giggled and I had to chuckle along with him.

"You sure you're alright with him like that?" Emmett asked, sitting in a chair next to the sofa, watching his little boy.

"Yeah, he's alright." I looked down at him again. "Aren't you, buddy?" He nodded, smiling as he took his thumb out of his mouth and wrapping his arm around my neck. Emmett laughed at my expression as his wet thumb slid against my skin and I glared at him, making him laugh even more. Nicky started laughing along with his dad, even though he clearly had no idea what he was laughing at.

"It's amazing. I've never known him to become so attached to someone so quickly." I turned, hearing Rosalie's voice as she walked up behind us, handing Emmett a beer and holding one out for me. I took it from her, thanking her before I took a sip and leaned forward, placing it on the coffee table in front of me. "He must know that you're a good guy." I shrugged, not knowing why he decided that he wasn't going to let me go. "You must have experience with kids."

"Well, my best friend, Jake has a little girl around the same age and I see her quite a lot." I laughed at Emmett's expression upon hearing about Jake.

"Jake has kids?" He sounded dumbstruck and my laughter increased.

"Yeah," I nodded and he blew out a breath, "you remember Bella, right?" Emmett nodded, obviously remembering the Chief's daughter. "She and Jake got married about six years ago. She had Leah two years later and now there's another little one on the way." His eyes widened even further and I nodded again. "Yup, a little boy."

"Wow." He shook his head and I laughed again. "Never would have thought."

"I know. But Jake's an amazing father. There's nothing he wouldn't do for his family." I let out a sigh, looking down at the little boy in my arms. "They've named me guardian if anything ever happens to the two of them."

"Really?" I nodded, reaching forward and grabbing my beer off the coffee table. Nicky reached for it, obviously wanting a taste but I held it away from him, raising an eyebrow at him as he whined, wanting it. Rosalie laughed as he gave up.

"I will say, you have a gift with him." She giggled, standing up and walking around the back of the sofa, brushing her fingers through her son's hair. "That's the first time he hasn't kicked up a real fuss when being denied something he wanted." She crossed her arms leaning on the back of the sofa. "Can I keep you?"

I laughed, shaking my head. "I'm sorry but I don't think the Bureau would be too happy about that."

"Drat." She muttered, pushing herself up and walking back into the kitchen.

"You're right, Emmett." He raised his eyebrows, wondering about my words. "She's something else."

"Told you." He chuckled, smugly. "She's right, though. He's not become so attached to someone so quickly or behaved so well for someone so quickly." He glanced in the direction of the kitchen. "I'll tell you what. He _hates_ Alice."

"Why doesn't that surprise me?" I muttered, realising that they might have been right about his judge of character if he wasn't too fond of our sister. "When did you let her near him?"

"She came round here about a year ago. It was dad's sixtieth birthday and she was arranging a party for him. She came over to demand that I come. She also had the audacity to say that she didn't want Rosalie there and that I should show some respect to the man that raised me and show up." I laughed out loud at Alice's nerve. "I told her to go screw herself and that was when Nicky here decided that he wanted to have a banana and couldn't get into it himself. He saw her and hid behind me."

"As children will do when they meet someone new."

"And when she tried to talk to him, he told her to go away." I chuckled, looking at Nicky who smiled up at me. "Needless to say that she wasn't happy."

"What did you do?"

"I told her to listen to the little boy and she and her father could go to hell." I raised an eyebrow at him and he nodded. "And of course, Nicky here happened to be at his repetition stage and managed to pick the word hell out of that sentence."

"Bad word, Daddy." He mumbled from where he was drooling on my jacket and I laughed.

"Well, he's right." I added when Emmett scowled at me. "It is a bad word."

"Look at this," Emmett sighed dramatically, trying to appear upset. "My own brother and son, my own family, turning against me. This is a dark, dark day."

"Silly Daddy." Nicky giggled and I laughed.

"Yes, silly Daddy." He didn't look too impressed with the two of us.

"Right, dinner's up." Emmett grinned at the words. But then again, anything that involved food made Emmett happy. He shot up and ran through to the kitchen. "Should have known you'd be first in here. Don't touch it." I chuckled at Rosalie's warning, wondering if Emmett would listen to her. "Nicky, time to wash your hands." He shook his head, his grip tightening around my neck. "Nicholas Anthony Cullen, wash your hands now." He climbed off of me as I sat there, stunned at my nephew's middle name. "You okay, Edward?" I nodded, standing up, grabbing my beer. "I've got to go and make sure he actually does wash his hands." I nodded again, walking through to the dining room.

"You okay, man?" Emmett asked, setting the plates on the table.

"You named him after me?" I asked quietly, looking up at him.

His expression softened and he walked around the table, grasping my shoulders. "Of course I did. You might have disappeared, Eddie but . . . I think I knew that there was a good reason. I was just too stubborn to try and figure out what it was. But no matter what the reason was, you were still my brother and I still love you. Naming Nicky after you was just one way to have a connection to you."

"Thank you, Emmett." My voice was soft, wavering slightly at my brother's words. He pulled me to him, wrapping his arms around me in a bone crushing hug. I laughed gently as he squeezed me. There was something else in his embrace. It was almost like he thought I was going to disappear.

We broke apart as Rosalie and Nicky walked back into the room. Well, Rosalie walked and Nicky ran to his chair, climbing into his booster seat and waiting for his food. Apparently, my nephew had inherited my brothers appetite.

Sitting down at the table, I had to admit that Rosalie's lasagne smelled amazing and when I put a forkful in my mouth, I found it tasted even better. I told her as much and she giggled, blushing softly.

"So, Edward, anybody lucky in your life?" She asked and I raised an eyebrow at Emmett who shrugged. I noticed that she hadn't specified a gender so I guessed that Emmett must have told her.

"Not at the moment." I shrugged, digging into my dinner, not wanting to waste a mouthful.

"What about Jasper?" Emmett suggested and I glared at him.

"Who's Jasper?" _Thanks, Emmett._

"A member of my team at work." I answered and her eyebrows shot up.

"Isn't that against the rules or something?" She asked and I shook my head.

"It's frowned upon but it's not forbidden or anything like that." I looked over towards Nicky, who apparently decided he liked to wear his food more than he liked to eat it.

"Oh, I thought that it was against policy rules or something." She shrugged, picking up a cloth and wiping her sons face.

"Nope. It's just not advertised, that's all." I took another bite, revelling in the taste of the meal. This had to be one of the best lasagnes I'd ever tasted. "There are agents in the Bureau that are married."

"Well," she raised her eyebrows and I had to laugh. "Learn something new every day."

Dinner passed in the same fashion, the both of us picking on Emmett several times, laughing at him when he complained of being double teamed. He sat and sulked until Rose mentioned ice cream that was on the way. I rolled my eyes at the fact that he hadn't changed. Any kind of food, especially dessert, was a weakness for Emmett. I think it always would be.

I excused myself to go to the bathroom and as I made my way upstairs, there was a knock at the door. I shrugged, not knowing that they were expecting someone. Apparently, Emmett didn't know that they were expecting someone either, as he asked if Rose knew who it was.

After taking care of business in the bathroom, I slowly made my way down the stairs, hearing Emmett talking in hushed tones to someone at the door. I angled myself so I could see the noticeable red hair from around Emmett's shoulder.

My mother.

I should have known that she would show up at some point. How she had known that I was still in town was a mystery to me. Either that or she had just decided to come and see Emmett about anything he might have learned about me.

Self-centred I know but according to Emmett, neither one of our parents had come to see him in around a year so that was the only conclusion I could come to.

"Emmett, please?" I heard her sniff and I closed my eyes. She sounded like she was fighting back tears and it tugged at my heart.

"I really don't think it's a good idea right now." I heard him reply and her shoulders sagged slightly at his words. I silently thanked Emmett for looking out for me but there was something about seeing her standing there, looking as vulnerable as she did. I couldn't turn her away.

"It's okay, Emmett." I said softly and he turned as I reached the bottom of the stairs. "Let her in."

"Edward?" My mother's voice sounded like a cross between a gasp and a relieved sigh. Emmett moved aside and my mom flew into the house, flinging her arms around me. I let out a breath, awkwardly returning her hug as I looked at my brother.

"You okay?" He mouthed and I nodded, just so that he could see it without alerting my mom. He motioned that he was going to leave us alone for a few minutes before moving into the kitchen.

"Okay, mom," I pulled away from her, standing up straight.

"Edward, I . . ." She reached out to touch my face before pulling her hands back and lacing them in front of her.

I gestured that we should move into the living room and the both of us sat down on the sofa, at opposite ends.

"Edward?" She whispered and I looked up at her. "I'm sorry." I shook my head, not wanting to hear apologies from her. "Why did you leave, baby?" She whispered, shifting over to sit next to me.

"You know why." I replied and she looked confused, shaking her head. "You know why I left. You knew what it was like living in that house. What it was like for me. Why didn't you ever stop him from what he was doing?"

"He was doing what he thought was best for you, honey-" I laughed out loud, standing up, not wanting to hear what she had to say in defence of that man.

"No," I shook my head, still laughing. "How was that what was best for me? Hmm? How can you justify that as being what was best for me? I was treated like a prisoner after Emmett left. Actually no, a prisoner has more freedom than I had."

"Honey, you had freedom-"

"Really?" I stopped, raising my eyebrows at her. "Where was my freedom? Maybe it was when he decided that I wasn't going to be allowed to see my friends because of whatever tutoring session in whatever language it was that night, or when he decided that he was going to take my car keys away. Or maybe it was when he decided that I wasn't allowed to go to Homecoming or Prom or any of the events that were going on around Forks? Are those the times you were thinking of?" I, somehow managed to keep my voice low, not wanting the others to hear what was going on. I knew that it could potentially upset Nicky if he were to hear arguing and shouting happening so I didn't want that to happen.

"They weren't things you needed to go to, Edward." She sounded disapproving of my arguments and I rolled my eyes, scoffing.

"Maybe they weren't essential but you know what? It was him taking away my freedom and it would have been nice to have some backup from my mother."

"Edward-"

"Look, I don't want to hear any excuses that you have for him. The man took away my freedom for two years and you didn't do anything to stop him." I sighed, running my hands through my hair. "I don't care anymore. I've moved on. I've got my own life that doesn't include anyone here."

"I know you're an agent with the FBI now and I was so proud when I heard that." She smiled and I took a breath, not wanting to let anything slip. "But there are some things you don't know, Edward."

"And what would those be?"

"I think you need to sit down."

. . . . . . . . . .

_**Dun dun dun!**_

_**What is it that Esme has to tell Edward? Not sure when you'll find out, as I said, new job soon so I'm trying to fit in as many chapters as I can.**_

_**Just so you know, I've searched the internet up and down . . . or whatever direction it is you search the internet in and there is no non-fraternisation policy within the FBI. It's frowned upon but not forbidden between agents.**_

_**Unless anyone can give me proof that there is, there will be no non-fraternisation policy in this story.**_

_**Let me know what you think.**_


	10. Chapter 10

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**I'm going to try and update once a week at the weekend. It might not be something that actually happens but I'm going to try. I've just started a new job so things are still up in the air at the moment.**_

_**Enjoy.**_

"_I know you're an agent with the FBI now and I was so proud when I heard that." She smiled and I took a breath, not wanting to let anything slip. "But there are some things you don't know, Edward."_

"_And what would those be?"_

"_I think you need to sit down."_

_. . . . . . . . . ._

_**Edward**_

"I'm alright standing, thanks." I crossed my arms, glancing up to see Emmett and Rose carrying Nicky up the stairs. Emmett gave me a look that told me he was giving us some time unless it started to sound like we were killing each other. I nodded and he made his way behind his mother and son.

"Sweetheart, please." She placed a hand on the sofa next to her, giving me a pleading look. I let out a sigh, sitting down next to her, slightly away from where she was. I could see that she wanted to move closer to me, her body shifting towards me slightly. But I could see that she knew that it wasn't a good idea, so she stayed where she was.

"What is it that I don't know?" I asked, leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees, looking at her. She looked down, sniffing gently. "Mom." I pushed and she looked up at me. "What is it that I don't know?"

"There are some things you don't know about your father." I shook my head, chuckling gently. "There are things you don't know about him and how he grew up. Edward," she shifted so that she was facing me more so than before, "your father didn't have everything that he worked hard to give you, your brother and sister. Have you never wondered why you've never met your father's parents?"

I shrugged, shaking my head. "Never occurred to me before."

"It's because your grandfather was an evil man. There are things that he did to your father that I don't even want to think about and that's why he has never been allowed around the three of you."

I shrugged again, not really understanding where she was going with this. "What does this have to do with me?"

"It has everything to do with you, Edward." She whispered, shifting closer to me and gently running her fingers along my hairline. "Your grandfather held Carlisle back in every way. He hardly let him out of his sight. The only time he did was when he was at school, sleeping or in the bathroom. Other than that, he always had to be with his father, no matter what he was doing."

"Kind of like he did to me." I muttered and she sighed, looking down.

"I know that what your father did before you left wasn't right but he wanted what was best for you. He arranged all of those classes and extra tutorials for you so that you would have the best chance for what you wanted to do in your life."

I let out a laugh, standing up and running my hands through my hair. "I can't believe this. You're . . . you're defending him? You've just told me that he went through shit with his father and you're defending him doing exactly the same thing to me. How does that make sense? Look, mom, I get it. You love him and you want to be on his side but there is no way that I'm ever going to understand what the hell he thought he was doing. I know that it doesn't seem important to you but because of him, I missed out on a lot of experiences that were important to me. I was the only kid that didn't go to prom. I was the only one that didn't go to any events around Forks at that time. There were so many times that I felt so alone because everyone else had done things that I hadn't even had a choice in." I sighed, closing my eyes. "I missed out on so much and I know it doesn't seem like much to you but . . . because of him, I lost my friends. I spent my entire senior year alone because all of my friends thought that I thought that I was too good for them."

"I know and I'm sorry for that." She looked up at me, her eyes glistening with tears.

"That's not what you need to apologise for." I said softly and she sniffed, looking confused.

"Then what _do_ I need to apologise for?"

"You weren't there for me." I stated, simply. "I know now and I knew then that there was something in you that didn't like what he was doing but the point is, you didn't say anything. You just stood there, in the background and . . . . I don't even know." I blew out a gust of air, my hands flopping down to my sides limply. "You didn't do anything to stop him."

"It wouldn't have made a difference, sweetheart."

"It might have. It might have made a difference." I looked at her and I saw a tear slide down her cheek. "But we'll never know, will we? Maybe if you'd mentioned how much like his father he was being, it might have made a difference, but there's nothing we could do about it. And it didn't help that Alice is his biggest cheerleader."

"What do you mean by that?" She looked confused at the mention of Alice.

"Did not know that she decided to try and verbally accost me when I was eating with Emmett in the diner?" I asked and she shook her head slowly. "Well, she did. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be in town but if you see her could you mention that I don't want to see her."

"I'm sorry if she upset you." She sounded apologetic and I sighed again.

"She didn't upset me. She pissed me off." She flinched at my words and I couldn't say that I cared. "She's still got that high and mighty attitude that annoyed me when we were teenagers. Nice to see some things don't change."

"Sweetheart," she stood up, stepping over to me, "you're right, Alice hasn't changed and you're not the only one who doesn't like the person that she's become. I don't know what caused the change. But I don't like who she is now. Now, if she was like that little spitfire up there, then I would have a different opinion of her." I smiled remembering that Emmett had said that mom loved Rosalie.

"Look, Mom, I . . ." I sighed, shaking my head. "I appreciate you coming over here but there's nothing that you can say to me that will even make me consider changing what I think of the two of them. The damage has been done and it can't be reversed."

She sighed, looking sad at my words but I couldn't bring myself to take them back. It would be lying and even though I wanted my mother to be happy but I wasn't going to lie to her to achieve that.

"Well," she gave me a sad smile, "can't blame me for trying, can you?" I shook my head and she stepped towards me, clearly wanting a hug and I couldn't deny her. I knew that it wasn't my mother's fault that my father was the way he was. Yeah, she might have been able to stem some of it, but Carlisle could be intimidating and I wouldn't be surprised if my mom was afraid of him to some extent. She pulled back, not letting me go but studying me closely in the way only a mother can. "Tell me, sweetie, are you happy?"

"I am," I answered honestly, giving her a smile. "I've made a life for myself in D.C. I have a job that, while it may be gruesome and disturbing in some ways, I really enjoy. I know that I'm making a difference and that's why I do it."

"I'm proud of you, honey." She whispered, placing a hand on my cheek gently. "I know it wouldn't be my first choice of career for you purely because I want you to be safe but as long as you're happy, that's all that matters to me, honey."

"Thanks, Mom." I whispered, pulling her close to me again.

"I better go." She said softly, looking at me longingly and I gave her a small smile in return and she cupped my chin again before making her way over to the door. "I love you, baby." She walked out before I could say anything in response.

Hearing it click, I let out a breath I hadn't realised that had been there. There was something in seeing my mother again that made me wish I was that little boy that had his mother there when he was sick.

I really had missed her.

"Hey," I turned to see Emmett standing there, watching me closely. "You okay?"

"I think so." I nodded slowly, running my hand through my hair. "Well, we're both still alive, so . . ." I chuckled and he smiled at me. "I don't know, Emmett. I'd like to say that there was some kind of understanding reached but if there was, I have no idea what it is."

"Well, as long as the two of you aren't waiting in the wings to get at each other, then . . ." He shrugged and I laughed gently.

"No, that's me and dad." He snorted, laughing and I couldn't help but join him. "This has been the weirdest few days." I muttered and Emmett nodded, blowing out a gust of air.

"Alright, I threw your bag in the guest room." I looked up at him, having forgotten about my bag completely when I'd had forty pounds worth of child thrown at me. I was glad that he had remembered to grab it because I knew that it would be outside still.

"Thanks, man." I sat back on the sofa, leaning back and Emmett joined me.

"How are you feeling?" He asked and I could feel his eyes on me.

"I don't know." I answered honestly, shaking my head as I looked over at my brother. "I honestly don't know. I mean, there's a part of me that wants to talk to her again but there's a part of me that doesn't trust myself to. I don't know. I'm so confused."

"That's okay, Ed." He wrapped an arm around my shoulder and I looked up at him. "I think you're allowed to be confused about all of this, Ed. There's something in your head telling you that Mom didn't actually do anything wrong but there's also something else telling you that even though she hadn't done anything directly to you, she sided with dad and that's not something you can get over."

He was right. "When did you get so deep?"

"Hey, it's what happens when you become a dad." He laughed and I shook my head, unable to hold back a smile. "At least it's what happened to me. I don't know about anyone else but since Nicky came along, it's like I've _had_ to grow up."

"Ha! Good one." I smirked and he mock glared at me.

"Watch it. I might be a dad but I'm still your big brother and as such it is still my duty to kick your ass when the time calls for it." I pointed a finger at me and I couldn't stop myself from laughing at the serious look on his face.

"Alright, we both remember what happened when you tried. And that was _before_ I joined the Bureau." I stood up, stretching out my arms over my head, yawning. "I'm going to turn in for the night. I hope you don't mind?" He shook his head standing up. He motioned for me to follow him and I realised there and then that I didn't know where the guest room was. He opened a door and stepped inside. The room was a decent size, the magnolia on three of the walls bringing out the dark maroon wall behind the head of the bed. I noticed that the bedspread and majority of the furniture followed the colour scheme of the wall.

"Hope you like it." He smirked, rolling his eyes and I knew that it wasn't his decorating expertise that went into this room. It didn't surprise that this room was down to Rose. It had her touch.

He left me to get settled and I sat down on the bed, sinking into the mattress. It surprised me and I chuckled as I realised that it was a Tempur-Pedic mattress. Why the hell did they have one of those in the guest bedroom? With the two of them, I'd never know. At least I never had any idea what was going through Emmett's head.

I changed into my night clothes, using the en suite that was connected to the guest bathroom to brush my teeth and carry out my nightly routine before I pulled back the sheets and climbed in, again, sinking into the mattress. I found myself glad that I'd thought to pack some jeans in my go-to bag. There was something in the back of my mind when packing that told me I needed to pack them, so I did, but there wasn't any particular reason I could think of.

I checked my phone, seeing that I had a couple of texts from the team. Well, Jake and Jasper really. I smiled when I saw Jasper's text letting me know that if things got tough here and if I needed to talk, he was always there to listen. I wanted to call him now but then again it was late in Virginia so I didn't want to disturb him.

I grabbed my phone charger out of the bag and looked for a socket, conveniently finding on down by the bedside table. Plugging my phone on to charge, I placed it on the table and settled back on my sied before closing my eyes and trying to slip off to sleep.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

It didn't take as long to fall asleep as I thought it was going to be which just told me how exhausted I really was. I yawned as I pushed myself up, or at least I tried to. My sense of stability combined with the fact that the mattress sank when pressure was put on it.

I nearly fell off of the bed when I put my hand down and missed the edge of the mattress. I shook my head, clearing it or at least trying to.

"Uncle Eddie!" I jumped as a three foot forty pound lump landed on my lap, giggling up at me. I had to laugh at the expression of glee on his face as he smiled up at me.

"Hey, buddy." I ran my hand through my hair, hearing the roughness of my own voice. "What are you doing in here?" I asked and he giggled.

"Daddy told me to come get you for breakfast."

I rolled my eyes, nodding at his words. "Of course he did." He bounced up and down on the bed which was not a good motion for my full bladder. "Alright, buddy, let me get dressed and-"

"No, silly!" He giggled again and I raised an eyebrow at him. "It's Sat-u-day!" I nodded, not understanding where he was going with his little route. "We have breakfast in jama's on Sat-u-day's."

"Oh," I exaggerated my reaction because I could see that that was what he was looking for. Little kids were so easy to please sometimes. "Well, then. I guess we have to have breakfast in our pyjama's then." I leaned down close to him and he eagerly leaned forward. "But I have to go to the bathroom first." I whispered and he nodded, his eyes going wide. He leapt off of the bed and I chuckled, shaking my head as I flopped back down on the bed, already worn out from all of the energy the little one seemed to exude.

I chuckled again, pulling myself out of bed and making my way into the bathroom. After going through my routine, I padded out of the guest bedroom and down the stairs. Emmett ran past me, shouting a good morning, a giggling Nicky running behind him. I couldn't help but laugh at the two of them and I was glad that Emmett had made a life for himself. He'd found the happiness everyone looked for and it was the simplest of things that gave him that.

A family.

Well, alright, I guess families weren't always simple but they didn't lead an extensive lifestyle and I could tell that it didn't matter to them.

"Hey," I looked away from the two children, one of them overgrown and suffering from a major Peter Pan complex, to see Rose grinning at me. "A little louder than you're used to, right?"

"You could say that." I laughed, sitting down on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. "They're always like that, right?" She laughed, nodding as she turned, flipping some pancakes. "I'd grab them quickly if you want them."

"Sounds like it was before we left home." I chuckled and she raised an eyebrow. "You eat fast or you don't eat."

"Yeah," she giggled, plating up some pancakes. I grabbed some quickly and she grinned, shaking her head. "You're right about that." She pulled out some maple syrup that she'd had in the microwave out and placed it on the table. "It's warm." She sighed, resting her hands on the breakfast bar as she watched me closely. "Edward?" She glanced behind me and I nodded, looking up at her. "I'm glad you're here." She whispered, maintaining eye contact with me.

"I'm glad I am too." I reached across, taking hold of her hand and she squeezed back. "It's hard for me to be back here but seeing Emmett as happy as he is, it makes it worth coming back." She smiled at me, seeming happy with my answer. "Of course, meeting you and Nicky is an added bonus." She giggled, squeezing my hand again before turning and carrying on with the pancakes as a yelling Emmett and a squealing Nicky came barrelling back into the kitchen. It seemed that the tables had turned and Emmett was now pursuing his son around the house.

"Uncle Eddie!" I laughed as he hid himself behind my stool away from his Dad. "Help me, Uncle Eddie!"

"Oh no, nobody can help you now!" Emmett mock roared and I laughed.

"Emmett Damien Cullen!" Rosalie turned around waving a spatula at Emmett and he stepped back, his arms dropping as his eyes followed the instrument in her hand. "You will leave that little boy alone if you want any breakfast."

"I'll be good." He nodded, sitting down on another one of the stools. He eyed my pancakes and I narrowed my eyes at him, moving my arm in front of my food. He grinned at me and I angled my fork like a weapon, ready to strike.

I wonder if 'defence of pancakes' would hold up in court.

Probably not.

"Here," Rosalie placed a plate of pancakes in front of Emmett and he whooped, grabbing some cutlery before grabbing the syrup from in front of me and drowning his pancakes in it. I was glad that I had grabbed what I wanted before Emmett had staked his claim.

Rose lifted Nicky into his chair next to mine, placing a plate in front of him, before grabbing her own.

"Edward, could you give Nicky a little syrup, please?" Rosalie asked, placing the pan into the skin, filling it with water, ready to wash out. I reached over to grab the syrup before Emmett let out what sounded like a growl and I raised an eyebrow. "Emmett, give your brother the syrup." I let out a chuckle at the motherly tone and how quickly he complied.

I poured a small amount of syrup on Nicky's pancakes, not giving in when he pouted at me for more. Rosalie smirked at me, shaking her head, whispering that I had more control and willpower against the little boy than his father did.

Apparently, Nicky had given up on getting more syrup as he dug into his breakfast with as much vigour as his father did.

I watched as the three of them interacted having the small meal that Rosalie had made.

You could see how much love the three of them had for each other. It wasn't something you saw often anymore. The two of them revolved around their child and I could see that he idolised his dad. Emmett was something I'd never really thought of him being before. He was a husband and father, something that had crossed my mind whenever it had wandered to my brother over the years.

I found myself smiling at the happiness Emmett had in his eyes when he looked at his son and I came to a realisation. I wanted to feel the obvious love my brother had for his wife and son. I wanted the life he had at home.

I wanted this.

But I didn't know if I'd ever have it.

. . . . . . . . . . . .

_**Things are moving forward, just slowly.**_

_**Don't worry, Jasper will be back soon and we'll be finding more out about him. Haven't decided whether I'm going to be doing a Jasper POV at this point in time. If the story calls for it, he might voice his opinions but for the moment it's Edward's story in his point of view.**_


	11. Chapter 11

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Edward**_

"You okay, Ed?" I shook my head, hearing Emmett addressing me, a curious look on his face. "You spaced out for a minute there."

"Yeah, I'm good." I gave him a small smile and he raised an eyebrow at me. "Seriously, I am. I just . . . I never thought that I'd be sat here, you know?"

"Yeah, I do." He smiled back at me, watching me for a minute before Nicky called his attention away.

"He's glad you're here, you know?" Rose said softly and I looked over at her, wondering what she meant. "He's missed you. Every so often, something would happen and he'd just go into this . . . funk and there's wasn't anything that could get him out of it. He'd get depressed and stay that way for a while and then he'd get angry and I'd have no idea why. But he'd snap out of it just as soon as he fell into it. It was strange but thankfully it didn't happen often." She sighed, looking over at her husband and son. "I know what it was now and I'm glad he won't go through that again."

"I'm sorry, Rose." I whispered and she shook her head, smiling softly. "I should have come back sooner."

"No, Eddie." I looked up seeing Emmett holding a grinning Nicky on his lap. It appeared that Nicky had managed to get his hands on Emmett's syrup. Though, so be fair it didn't look like Emmett had put up much of a fight. "You weren't ready to come back before now. And that's okay." He looked down at his son who was actually reaching for the syrup bottle, completely unaware of what the grown-ups were talking about and to be fair, I didn't think he really cared what was going on as long as he could get his hands on the liquid sugar. Rosalie reached over and moved it away from him. He whined and she raised an eyebrow at him.

I couldn't help but laugh at the little boy's pout. "Oh my God!" Emmett laughed looking between me and the little boy. "I knew that look was familiar! It's Eddie's pout!"

I rolled my eyes, knowing that I wasn't going to get out of his laughter. "Whatever, Em, you're just jealous because that look used to get me everything I wanted."

"Like that was fair." He muttered and I grinned, sticking out my tongue and Rosalie laughed. "What? It wasn't fucking fair. He'd want something and all he had to do was use that goddamn pout and whatever he wanted, he got." I grinned at him and he scowled at me. It was true. My mother had been a sucker for my pout. And I had to admit, I did use it to get what I wanted.

"Alright, messy man," Rose stood up, holding out her arms for Nicky who grinned and jumped into his mothers' arms. I watched in amazement as Rose managed to avoid the sticky hands and face as he landed in her arms. "Let's get you cleaned up."

I chuckled as the two of them left the room and I stood up, grabbing the plates.

"Whoa! What are you doing?" Emmett stood up, looking shocked.

"Um . . . cleaning up?" It came out as a question and he laughed, shaking his head.

"Nope. You might be my brother, Eddie, but you're a guest here. You don't need to do anything." I opened my mouth to argue but before I could say anything, Emmett's arm was around my neck in a headlock and he ground his knuckles into my head.

"Ah, Emmett!" I laughed and he joined in, his laugh bellowing out of him.

"Say it, Eddie." He laughed, continuing his assault. "Come on, say it, Eddie! I'll let you go if you say it. It's all it takes."

"Never!" I tried to get my bearings but I couldn't stop laughing long enough to do so. Remembering Emmett's weakness, I reached around and pinched his side. He yelped, not expecting it and his grip loosened. I pulled myself out of his grip and quickly ran around the other side of the table. He grinned at me, moving into a pose I remembered very well.

"Really want to play this game, Eddie?" He chuckled and I smirked back. "You remember how it always ended, right?"

"Yeah, but that was when I was a little kid. I know what I'm doing now." He laughed, shaking his head.

He feigned to his left before darting right and coming around the table. That was what he had always done and when we were younger I'd fallen for it. Knowing what was coming I ran into the living room. He managed to grab me and we both fell to the floor laughing as he grabbed for me again. I managed to wriggle out from underneath him and crawl away.

"Boys!" We both froze, seeing Rose standing there with her hands on her hips. She raised an eyebrow at us, looking stern and we looked at each other. I felt like I did when I was a kid and my mother had caught us doing something wrong. "What is going on here?"

"Sorry." We both muttered, looking anywhere but at Rose.

"Good." She turned away, walking back upstairs as we looked at each other again.

Must be a mom thing.

"I guess we better get dressed." Emmett said softly and we both stood up, chuckling. "You gonna have a shower?" He asked and I nodded, stopping outside the guest bedroom door. "Cool, there are towels in the bathroom."

I walked into the bedroom and closed the door behind me. I grabbed my bag, not wanting little people to start looking where they shouldn't be, taking it into bathroom with me and locked the door. I didn't want to risk an overexcited four year old bursting into the room while I was in the shower. I didn't know if he was able to get into his parents bathroom but I didn't want him to barge into the bathroom while I was having a shower.

I quickly turned on the water and undressed while I was waiting for it to warm up. I stuck my hand under the water before climbing underneath and letting the hot water wash over me. I turned around, letting my muscles relax as the hot water pounded down onto my shoulders.

I stayed in the shower for a while, washing the remnants of the last few days off of me before climbing out and grabbing one of the towels that were next to the shower. As I dried off, I brushed my teeth and shaved, quickly drying myself off completely before getting dressed. I was glad I'd had the forethought to bring some casual clothes, jeans and some shirts and some sneakers, otherwise I would have been going about the weekend in one of my suits.

I knew that I had been right about locking the bathroom door when I walked into the guest room and saw a cheeky four year old waiting for me on the bed.

"Finally!" He sighed as though I had been in there all day. I grabbed my watch, seeing that I had only been in the bathroom for twenty minutes at the most. "We gots to go." He grabbed my hand, started to pull me towards the door. I stopped, causing him to stop as well. He turned to look at me, scowling as I smirked down at him. "But we's going out. We has to go."

"Well, if we're going out, I've got to put some socks and shoes on, don't I?" I countered and he looked down at my feet. I wiggled my toes for good measure and he giggled. I grabbed my bag again, sitting down on the bed, pulling out some socks.

"What's that?" I heard him ask, looking at my guns. I moved him away from them, not wanting him to grab for them. Even though the safety was on and there was no way that I would ever let him anywhere near them.

"They're for grown-ups, buddy." I said softly, settling him next to me as I finished putting on my socks.

"Nicky?" I looked up and saw Rosalie standing in the doorway, smirking at her son. "Uncle Eddie's putting his shoes on and you need to do the same. Go to your Daddy." He nodded, jumping off the bed and running out of the room. "Edward?" I looked up at her, seeing her watching my bag. "Are those what I think they are?"

"Yeah, they are, Rose." I pulled the two of them out and rested them on the bed. "They're government issue that I'm required to carry."

"Even off –duty?" She sounded uncertain and I nodded.

"Even if it's not required, I, myself, feel more confident having it with me. At least I know that I'm prepared. I can understand if it makes you feel uncomfortable but I feel better having them with me." She nodded, taking a breath.

"As long as you can promise me that there is no way Nicky will get his hands on them."

"Rosalie," I stood up, walking towards her and placing my hands on her shoulders. "I would never put him in that kind of danger. I've already fallen in love with that little boy and there is nothing I wouldn't do to keep him safe. That's one of the reasons I keep them with me, along with my badge. That way if something happens, I have that sway there. No matter what it is that's going on."

She nodded, seeming to understand. "Okay, as long as there's no way that he can get hold of them." Her eyes went wide as something came across her. "He was in here on his own while you were in the shower. What if-"

"I had my bag in the bathroom with me. That's one of the reasons I took it in there. I didn't want to chance anything happening, okay." I smiled and she blew out a breath. "Hey, contrary to what my brother has told you, I know what I'm doing."

She let out a laugh, shaking her head. "I'm sorry. I'm being an idiot."

"No you're not. You're a mother who wants to make sure her baby boy is safe. There's nothing idiotic about that." She looked up at me and I could see the worry in her eyes easing. "Come on, let's go and find out what we're doing today." She laughed, walking out of the room downstairs and I grabbed my guns and holsters, fastening one underneath my shirt, making sure it was concealed and fastening the other around my right ankle, where it always was.

Grabbing my badge, wallet, phone and jacket, I made my way downstairs only to have a four year old throw himself against my legs.

"Whoa!" I stumbled slightly before picking him up. "What's gotten into you?" I asked and he giggled, wriggling to get down. I let him down and he ran towards the door, clearly impatient. "Where exactly are we going?"

"Port Angeles." Rose laughed, trying to grab her son, who apparently didn't want to put his coat on.

"Okay," I laughed, looking down as Nicky ran behind me again. I reached out and took his coat from Rose who gave it to me with a smirk. I held out the coat, raising my eyebrows at him. He shook his head, crossing his arms in front of him. "Alright then, well, if Nicky doesn't want to put his coat then I guess we'll just have to go without him. You know, I really want some ice cream. You guys?"

"Yeah, I could go for some ice cream." Emmett murmured, nodding his head.

"Sounds like a good idea to me." Rose smiled and I was glad they'd both caught on to my idea.

"I want some!"

"Ah but see you won't put your coat on, so you have to stay here, buddy." His eyes went wide and he rushed forward, grabbing the coat and trying to put it on. I winked up at his parents who were chuckling as I helped the little boy who was now eager to get the garment on. I knelt down and zipped up the coat and he ran towards the door.

Rose sighed, looking at me, smiling. "Where did you come from?"

"Same place as him." I pointed towards my brother and she rolled her eyes.

"You know what I mean," we all walked out of the door and Emmett locked the door, "you're so good with him. It's amazing. I don't want to let you go back to Virginia."

"Sorry, Rose." I laughed, wrapping an arm around her. "I have to go back there. If anything, I think my bosses would be upset if I didn't turn up for work."

"Damn, girl can't get a break." She laughed, opening the car door for Nicky, who scrambled into his booster seat. It was funny to watch the tiny boy try to climb into the back of Emmett's enormous Hummer. I mean, even Rose had to climb up onto the step as she strapped him in before she climbed down and walked around to the other side of the car, climbing into the back.

I stood there, wondering why she would be getting in the back and Emmett clapped me on the back. "You didn't think you'd be sitting in the back, did you?" Emmett laughed and I shook my head, smirking.

I managed to climb into the humungous vehicle without embarrassing myself. It was a hard feat but I managed it with a little pride.

The ride to Port Angeles was interesting to say the least. Apparently, games were needed to keep Nicky from whining about how long it was taking to get somewhere. But after the hundredth game of eye spy, we all gave out a silent cheer at the 'Welcome to Port Angeles' sign.

"You guys here for anything in particular?" I asked and Rose nodded.

"We need to get Nicky a new bed. He's getting a bit too big for the one he has now." Rose giggled as her little boy let out a cheer, shouting that he wanted a big boy bed. I couldn't help but laugh.

After parking the car, we all climbed out – or should I say, fell out – of the Hummer before making our way out into Port Angeles.

We made our way into Angeles Furniture and Nicky immediately ran towards a bed and jumped on top of it stating that this was his new bed.

"Well, that was quick." Rose laughed and I had a feeling that normally these kinds of things would take a while.

"Hey," we both turned to look over at Emmett. "I'm going to head over to Walmart quickly. He's a nightmare to take around there, so I'm going to head over while he's distracted in here."

"That's a good idea." Rose laughed, linking her arm with mine. "Besides, Edward's better at getting Nicky to do what we want him to than you are." I laughed at Emmett's pout before he slumped his shoulders and exaggeratedly slouched out of the shop.

"Where Daddy?" We turned to see a little boy watching as his father walked out of the store. "Where he going?"

"He's got some grown up stuff to do and we're gonna see him later, okay?"

"I wanna go with Daddy." He looked up at the two of us, trying to use his pout two disarm the two of us.

"Sorry, buddy, you've got to say with Uncle Edward and Mommy for now. We'll see Daddy later." He didn't seem appeased by my answer and his pout increased. "Don't even try it." I laughed, ruffling his hair gently. "I invented that look, buddy, so it's not going to work. Come on, let's go get you a new bed."

He cheered, running off to the bed he'd previously chosen which surprised me. I'd imagined he would have seen something else and preferred that, doing that over and over again.

But apparently, he was set on that one.

Rose quickly found one of the shop assistants and let them know they wanted that bed. They opted to have it delivered, rather than trying to heave it into the back of the Hummer. Nicky wasn't too pleased about having to leave the bed in the store but was easily placated when Rose told him that it would be at their house soon.

He skipped out of the store, asking where his Daddy was before shouting about the ice cream he was promised before we left the house. We both knew that there had been no chance that he would forget about the ice cream. We made our way around to Baskin Robbins where Nicky immediately ran to the counter. I laughed, following him up there while Rose pulled out her phone, knowing that Emmett would want some as well.

"Right, buddy," he held up his arms, wanting to be picked up. "What do you want?"

"Chocolate!" He shouted and I flinched, moving away from him.

"Hey, you ever heard of an inside voice?" I asked, looking at him and he nodded. "Good. It's time to use it."

"Chocolate." He said softly and I nodded, putting back down on the ground.

"Rose, what are you having?" I turned, seeing her hanging up the phone.

"I'm going to have some Pink Bubblegum ice cream." She grinned and I laughed. It seemed like a fitting choice for her. "Emmett wants the Made With Snickers ice cream."

"Sounds like Emmett." I rolled my eyes and she laughed. Emmett had always had a weakness for Snickers. We used to have a rule where we could have a chocolate bar every Friday after school and while Alice and I would always get something different, Emmett always had a Snickers.

"What about you?"

"I'm going to have the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough." I grinned and she giggled.

"Hi," I looked up to see a teenage girl standing behind the counter, grinning at me. "What can I get you?"

"Alright, we want a chocolate for this little guy," he jumped up and down, giggling for his ice cream, "a Made With Snickers, Pink Bubblegum and a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough."

She nodded, grabbing some cones, smiling over at me. I heard Rosalie giggling softly and she waved me off when I turned to look at her. I shrugged looking down at Nicky who followed my lead and shrugged before turning back to face the counter.

She handed us our ice creams and Nicky cheered, immediately digging in just as Emmett walked into the shop, swinging a bag from Walmart in his hand. I handed him his ice cream and he grinned, wrapping an arm around his wife and giving her a kiss on the side of the head before following in his son's footsteps and starting to devour his ice cream. I rolled my eyes, knowing that food was a priority for Emmett.

"Thank you." Rosalie said, looking pointedly at Emmett as she took her ice cream from me. He looked between the two of us, clearly not realising his faux pas.

"Thanks." I said to the girl, handing her a twenty for the ice creams. She handed me my change and a receipt which I tucked into my pocket. We sat down at a booth and Rose grabbed some napkins, setting some down in front of me. I grabbed one and tucked it into the front of Nicky's t-shirt. He whined, clearly not wanting it but I gave him a pointed look and he stopped.

I think he realised that Uncle Edward wasn't a push over like Daddy (and probably sometimes Mommy) was. I looked up, laughing as I saw Rose doing the same thing to Emmett. He gave her a look that replicated the one his son had given me exactly.

Rosalie and I both laughed at Emmett and he pouted at the two of us before shrugging and carrying on eating his ice cream.

We spent the rest of the day chasing after Nicky – and sometimes Emmett – around Port Angeles, making sure that he didn't run off into the crowds or the road. I made sure that he was always in sight or holding one of our hands. I'd seen and been a part of too many child abductions to feel okay with letting him run off on his own. And boy could that little boy run.

I was exhausted by the end of the day.

. . . . . . . . . .

I was packing everything into my bag, making sure I hadn't forgotten anything for when I left in the morning, smiling back on the weekend I'd spent with my brother and the first weekend I'd spent with my nephew and sister in law.

"Unca Eddie!" I turned, grabbing the four year old missile that had launched itself at me. "Where you go?"

"I got to go home in the morning, buddy." I pulled his thumb out of his mouth and he scowled at me. He looked adorable.

"Why?"

"Because I have to. I got things there that I have to do, I have a job, like your daddy does, and I have a house and friends and people that miss me."

"I gonna miss you." He whined and I chuckled.

"I'm gonna miss you too, buddy. But I have to go. Or I'm gonna get in trouble. You don't want Uncle Edward to get in trouble do you?" He shook his head, his eyes going wide. "I didn't think so. So, you see, I have to go home."

"Can I come?"

"Well, sometime soon, you and Mommy and Daddy can come see where I live. How's that?" He nodded, laughing. I nodded, placing him back on the ground and making sure that the only things I had out were what I was going to need for the next day. I had booked myself an air ticket to leave at three o'clock the next afternoon. It left me enough time to get to Seattle. It would get me back home in the evening and that meant that I could shove everything in the wash, maybe get myself some food and go to bed. I'd made sure that Garrett knew that I wouldn't be back until Tuesday. It would allow me to get enough sleep to be awake for work the next day.

I put my bag on the floor and chased Nicky out of the room. He squealed, giggling in the way that only innocence could as I grabbed him just before the top of the stairs, lifting him up and blowing a raspberry on his belly. That made him laugh enough more as I held him to me, walking downstairs.

I let him go and he ran off to his mom in the kitchen as I turned and made my way into the living room. Emmett was sat there, watching something on the television, beer in his hand.

I looked at the TV seeing that whatever he was watching had just started and a deep voiced narrator was making a dramatic introduction to the programme.

"_July nineteen seventy-six in New York city. A city in fear-"_

"Son of Sam." I stated, pulling my feet up underneath me.

"Wha-" Emmett stared at me, his mouth open. "How do you _do_ that?"

"What?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "It's obvious who it's about. Son of Sam – or David Berkowitz – was shooting couples in cars in from July nineteen seventy-six until he was arrested in August nineteen seventy seven."

"Alright, smartypants." He grumbled and I laughed. He cleared his throat, sitting forward and placing his beer on the coffee table in front of him. He grabbed the Walmart bag he'd placed down by the side of his chair. "I got this done for you." I took the bag, feeling the confused look on my face. I pulled out a photo frame and turned it over, inhaling a shaky breath as I saw the picture that Emmett had taken of me holding Nicky the first night I'd been with them. "I know it's not much but-"

"Emmett," I whispered, not able to take my eyes away from the picture in front of me. "I don't know what to say."

"Well, I think the two of you look cute." He laughed and I tried to glare at him but knowing that it didn't really come off the way I wanted it to. "I just wanted you to have something to remind you of him."

"As if the scratches didn't do that." I laughed and he chuckled along with me. "Emmett, it might not be top of my list to come back here but that doesn't mean that I'm going to leave you guys behind. I'm not disappearing again. I'm going home."

"Gonna miss you, Eddie." He said softly and I smiled at him looking back down at the photograph in my hand. Nicky's look was one of pure innocence, thumb in his mouth as he rested his head on my shoulder and I looked down at him.

I was going to miss them too.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


	12. Chapter 12

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**I know that updates haven't been too reliable recently and I'll be honest, they might not get much better any time soon. I've just found out I'm expecting so I'll be writing and updating in between work and doctors appointments. Not sure when the next update will be.**_

_**Edward**_

The flight back to Virginia seemed to take longer than the flight out. Maybe it was because of the crying baby behind me or the old man that smelled like onions that sat next to me. Of course the fact that it was delayed for nearly three hours and then we sat idling on the runway for about half an hour or so. No wonder it felt like it was fucking forever before we landed at Dulles.

I was getting spoiled with all the flights on the jet.

Remind me never to book commercial again.

It took forever to get off the plane and grab my bags. The fact that there were screaming babies, whining kids and pissed off parents everywhere didn't help. It gave me a fucking headache more than anything. I was so glad that we didn't have to really deal with this regularly. I managed to grab my bags before anyone else mistook them for their luggage, hating that I'd had to put it in the hold at all. Unfortunately, my go bag was too big to qualify as a carry on, so I'd had to deal. Walking outside, I breathed a sigh of relief, turning my cell on to call for a cab to take me home. I looked around as I waited for it to power up, surprised as it buzzed in my hand.

I entered my password and saw that I had a message from Jasper of all people. Confused I felt my brow furrow as I clicked on the message but as it opened up, his name flashed on the screen, indicating that he was calling me.

I accepted the call and held the phone to my ear. "Hello?"

"What has you so confused?" He chuckled and I frowned at the phone, wondering what the hell he was talking about. I guess it was clear that I was confused. That I hadn't been expecting him to call me. The only time he had before was when we were working. "It's not the phone's fault."

"Where the hell are you?" I asked, looking around. He had to be around here somewhere. Either that or he's managed to rope Bree into hacking into all of the cameras at the airport. Why he'd do either of those things I don't know.

But then again, if it involved hacking, Bree was your best friend and bound to do it.

"Look to your left," he chuckled and I felt like I had to turn, just to see what the hell was going on. "Little more. Little more. Stop. Blue truck." I saw the door of a blue Dodge Ram 1500 open and he jumped out, holding a phone to his ear. He waved, laughing.

He hung up the phone, walking towards me, a grin on his face. I had to say, if I thought that he was hot in his suit and shirts, it had nothing on him in jeans and a t-shirt. I swallowed as I watched him walk towards me, looking like he belonged in some kind of clothing or fragrance commercial rather than walking towards me in an airport parking lot.

He smirked at me as he stopped and I knew I looked like a confused idiot as he stood there. "Umm . . ." I put my phone back in my pocket, purely to give myself something to wipe the stupid look off my face. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I was in the office when you called Garrett yesterday to tell him you were coming home and I figured I'd save you the cab fare." Huh. "Would you rather I hadn't?" He looked slightly nervous and I shook my head, not wanting to upset him.

"No! I mean, thanks. I just wasn't expecting anyone to be here." I shrugged, running a hand through my hair.

"I know." He chuckled and I couldn't help but smile at him. "But hey, it'll save you the cab fare and I thought we could get some dinner. You gotta be starving."

"Yeah, well," I couldn't help but glance down at my stomach as it decided to make itself known. I felt my cheeks heat up as it growled and he laughed. "I guess that answers your question."

"Shall we go get you some food?" He chuckled and I nodded, grabbing my bags and following him towards his truck.

"Why the truck?" I laughed, climbing into the passenger's side as he got into the drivers' side, slamming the door closed.

"I used to live just outside Houston and it made the most sense to have it, especially when I went to see my parents. They live in a small ranch town and pretty much the only thing on the roads over there were trucks. I thought, why not go bigger and better than everyone else." He didn't sound ashamed at the fact that he knew he was upstaging everyone else around him. But then again, if he could pull it off, why should he?

"Not really something you'd expect for D.C. though." He nodded in agreement, glancing at me as he turned out of the parking lot and down onto the street.

"So then, what do you drive?" He laughed and I felt my cheeks heating up again. He was going to get a kick out of what I drove. It wasn't anything like his enormous truck. "So? Come on, it can't be that bad." He laughed, glancing at me again. "It's not a Volvo or something like that, is it?" I cleared my throat and he laughed again. "It _is_ a Volvo."

"Hey, there is nothing wrong with Volvo's." I fought back and he chuckled, shaking his head. "Besides, that's just my everyday car." I replied, smiling smugly at the thought of what was parked in my private area of the condo's parking lot. I had paid a lot of money to have that area for my car. I wasn't going to have it out and about where anyone could get their hands on it.

"Oh, really?" He sounded interested in what I might be hiding now. "So, come on, what have you got hidden away?"

"Be nice and you might see for yourself." I replied smirking at him and he raised an eyebrow.

"You're not even going to give me a hint?" He asked and I shook my head, smirking at him. He huffed, his bottom lip sticking out slightly and I had to look out of the window quickly. I didn't know how he'd react to what I had running through my mind. I was fairly certain that he was gay but I didn't want to be presumptuous about anything. "You're mean." He grumbled and I laughed.

"And you're acting like a toddler."

"Well, maybe I've been picking things up from my teenager." He laughed and I shook my head, running my hand through my hair again. "You like Italian?" He asked and I nodded as my stomach growled again. "I'll take that as a yes. Not one for plane food, huh?"

"That cardboard and slop, please." I shook my head, feeling my face wrinkle in disgust. "No thank you. I'd prefer to go hungry for a little while and have my digestive system still work, thank you very much."

"Can't say as I blame you." He laughed as he pulled into the parking lot of a small Italian restaurant. We climbed out of the truck and he laughed as I stumbled slightly. I glared at him and flipped him off which made him laugh even harder. I rolled my eyes, chuckling as I followed him inside.

It was a quaint little restaurant and it clearly catered towards both couples and families. There was a small area at the back of the restaurant that resembled a small play area for younger children. There were a few booths around by the windows and smaller tables in the centre. The varnished wood of the bar along one side of the restaurant gave the impression that they got a lot of business. There were a few people dotted around and a hostess walked over to us, smiling at the two of us.

"How many?" She asked, her voice soft and sweet.

"Two, please." Jasper gave her a small smile in return, glancing at me. "Is there a booth available?"

"Of course." She grabbed some menus and led us over to a booth, setting the menus down in front of us. "Can I get you something to drink while you decide?"

"Um . . . I'll have a coke." Jasper grabbed a menu off the table, glancing up at her and she turned to me.

"Make it two, thank you." She smiled, making a note before making her way somewhere else. I wasn't sure where but it didn't really matter as I picked up the menu, browsing what they had. "What are you thinking?" I asked Jasper who had his brow wrinkled slightly.

"I think I'm going to go for one of their pizzas." He grinned and I laughed, rolling my eyes. "What? I know what I'm getting with a pizza. What about you?"

"Hmmm . . . I think I'm going to go for the Spaghetti al Nero di Seppia." He rolled his eyes and I raised an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"I forgot you could speak a bajillion languages." He muttered, glancing back down at his menu in front of him.

"What's wrong with being able to pronounce what's on the menu?" I asked, closing my menu and folding my arms on the table, leaning forward slightly. He mimicked my posed, his expression still amused. "Jealous?"

"What? That you can pronounce some strange words?" He asked and I chuckled, shaking my head.

"No, that I'm fluent in what's considered one of the most romantic languages."

"Ooh, the language of love, huh?" He smirked as he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Technically, that's French, which I am also fluent in."

"Weirdo." He laughed and I bit my lip, not missing how his eyes flicked to my lips quickly. What was going through his head? It was my job to read people, to figure out what they were aiming towards at a particular time but when it came to Jasper, I had absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing.

We both glanced up at the waitress as she placed our drinks on the order and took Jasper's order. She turned to me and I didn't take my eyes off Jasper as I let the words roll off of my tongue. His lips parted slightly and a slight flush appeared on his cheeks.

Apparently Jasper liked Italian.

I barely noticed as the waitress left to get us our food. Apparently, Jasper didn't either.

"Jasper? I asked softly and he hummed in response, his eyes not leaving mine. "Is this a date?" I asked, smirking slightly at him as his eyes widened.

"Umm . . . what?" He sat back slightly and I chuckled. "I, um," he ran a hand through his hair and I laughed gently. "Would you be mad if I told you I hope so?"

"No," I grinned, shaking my head, "though you could have just asked me. I wouldn't have said no."

"Really?"

"Really." I couldn't hold back the laughter that was bubbling out of me. "Why do you think I would?"

"I don't know." He shrugged, looking sheepish. "I didn't think you . . ."

"You didn't think I liked you?" He shrugged and I smiled at him. "I do, Jasper. I know that we haven't known each other that long but I do like you."

"I like you too." He whispered and I smiled at him. He sat forward, reaching over and placing his hand on mine across the table. "Is this okay?"

I turned my hand over, linking his fingers with mine. "Yeah." His smile was big enough to light up the room and I felt a sense of pride at the idea that I had put it there.

"Of course it would be that way." We both looked up to see our waitress standing there, a disappointed look on her face. "It's always the cute ones." She muttered and we looked at each other, smiling. She placed our food down in front of us, forcing us to break our hands apart so that we could eat with some kind of grace. If that was possible in Jasper's case. Was there a graceful way to eat pizza? Guess we were about to find out. "You two are really cute together." She winked at the two of us and we couldn't help but laugh as she walked away.

"So . . . is this where we sit here and talk about stuff that doesn't actually matter?" Jasper asked and I laughed, picking up my cutlery.

"I don't know." I shrugged, thinking back on other dates I'd been on. Thinking about it, when I went out with Sam, we always went to fancy restaurants that were frequented by politicians and the elite of Washington D.C. I didn't really care for people like that. They were flat, shallow people that never had any kind of personality. They didn't seem to understand what I did for a living. They thought that it was like it was on TV. It never seemed to penetrate that it wasn't.

"So, what lead you to join the Bureau?" I asked and he paused, thinking. I wondered if something I'd said had struck a nerve.

"When I was a kid, my parents were well off. We never wanted for anything and things were good. My dad made us work if we wanted something. We had to do chores and stuff, keep our grades up, you know, stuff like that." I nodded, understanding, thinking back to how my father had been before all of the shit went down with him. "And when I was fifteen, they bought into this insurance thing, at least that's what I think it was, they never really divulged the whole story." He took a deep breath, taking a sip of his drink. "But what I do know is that it left my parents with practically nothing. We went from being well off and being able to do anything we wanted to to having practically nothing. All because of one asshole."

"That's why you went into white collar." He nodded, taking another bite out of his pizza. "Did you find the guy that conned your parents?"

"Eventually." He sighed, sitting back in his seat. "It wasn't like I thought it was going to be. He was just this little guy. You know . . . he looked like he should have been someone's grandpa, with a pipe and slippers rather than this guy who'd conned people out of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of dollars. It just wasn't what I expected it to be."

"It never is." I gave him a small smile that he returned. "So much for talking about stuff that doesn't actually matter, huh?" He laughed, shaking his head.

"So, six languages?" He laughed and I nodded, shrugging my shoulders, feeling my cheeks heat up at his gaze. "You ever actually had to use them all?"

I shook my head, taking another bite. "Only once or twice and that's normally Spanish or French. And for work. I haven't been to any of the countries, so I've never really had to use them at all. Other than to insult my father in a language he couldn't understand."

"That must have been interesting." I shrugged, not really thinking of it that way. All I knew was that it pissed him off that he didn't know what I was calling him when I muttered under my breath in Russian. I never understood why he had me learn languages he didn't know himself.

He wanted everything for me, is what he used to say.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting there, talking about nothing that really mattered. I learned that Jasper was a Trekkie and I couldn't hold back my laugh when he scowled at my calling him that. He couldn't understand how I didn't watch that but enjoyed watching things like Haven. I shrugged, telling that things like Star Trek hadn't appealed to me before and he scoffed, rolling his eyes.

We agreed to disagree on that one.

I also found out that his favourite film was the Nightmare Before Christmas. Something we shared. There was just something about the early Tim Burton films that were so different to his later work. Jasper said that he and his son always had arguments about when the appropriate time to watch it was. His son always said Halloween and Jasper always said both.

I thought about it for a second, agreeing with Jasper.

It wasn't a film that had to be watched at a specific time. It could be watched any time of the year.

It was awesome.

End of.

He laughed when I told him I had the special edition DVD and the entire soundtrack on my phone. At least he did until he told me he had exactly the same thing.

We decided to skip out on getting any dessert and we walked around instead. We were going 'window shopping' as Jasper put it. I honestly thought of it as walking around without having any intentions of actually buying anything.

It surprised me when he reached out, taking my hand in his own before looking up at me with a sheepish smile.

"Is this okay?" He asked, his voice quiet, anxious as he bit down on his lip, his eyes roaming my face.

I gave him a small smile, nodding and linking my fingers with his, gripping his hand tighter. The answering smile that he gave me the only answer I needed. Who knew that the gorgeous guy that had walked into the office all those weeks ago would be standing here, linking hands with me, grinning at me. Because I hadn't pulled away from him.

Suddenly, thoughts of Sam rushed into my head and I tried to quickly push them away. He had overwhelmed me with his looks. He was gorgeous, I had to admit. But it was only a sweet cover for the asshole that lived underneath. He was a dick, plain and simple. Before everything had gone down he had started to become manipulative and controlling. He tried to cut me off from my friends and stop me from doing what I wanted to do. He wanted me to quit my job in the BAU and take on something that meant I didn't have to travel. He told me that it was because he didn't want me to go away so much because he missed me when I was gone but after everything I saw it for what it actually was.

He wanted me to stay in town because he wanted to cut me off from everything. He was trying but I knew who I was and what I wanted. He didn't seem to know that. He didn't know what I'd been through with my family. Jasper already knew more about me and my history than Sam did. Or more than he cared to know, anyway.

I shook my head, pushing him out of my mind. He didn't matter anymore. I didn't need him screwing up my life more than he already had.

I already knew from what he'd told me that Jasper wasn't the kind to string someone along. And I got the feeling that he never entertained going out with someone that he couldn't envision introducing to his son. I couldn't help the warm fuzzies that overtook my when I thought about what that could mean.

And he said that he noticed me months before he moved.

Cue internal teenager girl.

What?

Every gay man has one, no matter how much he denies it.

It's there.

We walked around for a little longer, hands linked. He'd started to swing our arms like they did in those stupidly sappy rom coms before I stopped, staring at him. He grinned at me but I shook my head. He tried to pout but I'd just told him that I might be gay but I'm not _that_ gay.

The drive back to my apartment was comfortable. We didn't need to talk the whole way but I noticed him glancing at me a couple of times. Well, the only reason I noticed was because I was looking at him as well. I couldn't help it. He was just so good to look at.

He pulled up in front of my apartment building and I leaned round to grab my bag, pulling it through in between the front seats before I looked over at him. "How do you know where I live?"

"That's for me to know and you to wonder." He smirked and I rolled my eyes, chuckling. "Don't worry, I'm not a stalker. I asked Garrett so I didn't look like a loser when I came to get you."

"You were worried about looking like a loser?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and he nodded, looking down at his hands. I couldn't help but laugh and he looked at me. "Silly man. You didn't need to know where I lived. Being honest it's a little weird that you asked. But it's also cute."

"Cute?" He snorted and I laughed.

"Yeah. Jasper, no one's been bothered to try and impress me that way." He shrugged, clearly not knowing what to say. I gave him a small smile, opening the door to Jasper's truck. I turned back to look at him. "I'll see you on Mon-"

I didn't get a chance to finish before his lips were on mine. The kiss was soft but firm. I froze for a second before melting into him. He tastes like the pizza he had at the restaurant and something I couldn't place. Something I guessed was pure Jasper. And I could see myself becoming addicted to it.

He let out a soft sigh as he pulled away from me, a small smile on his lips.

"I've been wanting to do that for weeks." He whispered and I opened my eyes again.

"Oh yeah."

"Yeah." He chuckled, looking down at my lips again. "Since I saw you at the seminar in Houston."

"That long, huh?" I looked down at where our hands had become linked before looking back up at him.

"Yeah."

I let out a sigh, knowing that I had to go inside or we wouldn't be leaving the truck any time soon. I bit my lip, leaning forward and giving him another chaste kiss before leaning away and pushing the car door open.

"I had a great time today." He grinned as though I'd just told him he'd won the lottery. Then again, I felt like I had. "I'll see you on Monday."

He nodded as I climbed out of the truck, closing the door and looking back at him. He grinned at me again before revving the engine and pulling out of the lot. I chuckled at him, shaking my head and making my way up to my condo.

I walked past the security guy, nodding to him and making my way into the elevator.

And all the while I didn't have it in me to even try and wipe the stupid grin off my face.

And at that moment in time, I didn't want to.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .


	13. Chapter 13

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Edward**  
_

Walking into the office on Monday, I felt sufficiently lighter than I had done in a long time. I couldn't put my finger on what it was but whatever it was, I wasn't going to let it go.

"Hey," I jumped slightly, smiling when I saw Jasper standing at his desk. "How was the rest of your weekend?" His voice was soft, appropriate for eight o'clock on a Monday morning.

"It was good. I had to catch up on some errands and chores around the house but it was . . . nice, you know? Just simple." I shrugged and he grinned, nodding. "What about you?"

"I had Jeremy for the weekend so it was pizza and video games for me." He laughed and I chuckled, remembering that when I was a teenager, I didn't really want to leave the house too much. There was something about when you were a teenager. You were either one that was out of the house all the time or you barely left your bedroom. I was one of the latter and it seemed that Jeremy was as well. "Sometimes prying him off the couch is a mission in itself." I laughed again, shaking my head.

He looked around quickly and I felt my brow furrow before he quickly pressed his lips to mine before pulling away, smiling. I bit my lip, glancing around the office, noting that there was no one else around. We were in early so it wasn't unusual.

"I know it's not 'forbidden' but I don't want to get in trouble with the boss." He said softly and I nodded, understanding where he was coming from.

We settled in to work as everyone else started to arrive. We glanced at each other, smiling before we turned to go into the conference room. He sat across the table from me and Jake took the seat next to me, nudging me deliberately as he sat down. He raised an eyebrow at me and I quirked one back, wondering what he was thinking.

On second thought, I didn't want to know.

Tanya quickly walked into the room, explaining about a case in Columbus, Ohio surrounding children. It was cases like these that made this job hard. Three children had gone missing, turning up dead three days later. It was happening in three weekly cycles and the local PD had called us in before another one went missing. There was another week left before the next abduction could occur and none of us wanted another child to be hurt.

It didn't take long for us to get packed up and on the jet, none of us wanting to lose any time when it came to getting there. We needed to learn as much about this case as possible before we reached Ohio, not wanting to waste time having to go over every minute detail with the PD. We'd have to go over with some of the details with them but we wanted to be able to get started as soon as possible.

We learned that all of the children had been taken when they were walking home from school. All of them walked in a group before they all split off into their different streets. Each of them had been attending the same school so the local PD had been insisting that parents carpool with each other, making sure that no children were walking home, even if they lived just down the street from the school. They were keeping the children on lockdown just as they had started doing after the second abduction but it hadn't been working.

We landed and quickly made our way to the police station, splitting into cars. Jake and Garrett made their way to the latest dump site while Jasper, Tanya, Victoria and I made our way to the station. We took two separate cars and lo and behold, Jasper and I just happened to end up in the same car. I smirked at him as he started the engine, looking at me innocently.

Yeah, I didn't buy it either.

"This is gonna be tough." He muttered quietly and I hummed in agreement.

"These are the cases that make this job hard." I ran a hand through my hair, opening the file again, scanning the words I'd read over and over again. I closed my eyes, leaning my head back on the headrest, letting a breath of air out of my nose. "It's hard anyway but when it's about children . . . it just doesn't seem to make sense. I don't understand how people can hurt children. No matter how long I am in this job, that will be something I never understand. How someone can take the life of a child. It's completely beyond me."

"I know." Jasper glanced over at me and I looked over and smiled at him. "It's stories and cases like these that make me want to grab Jeremy and lock him in his room and never let him out. Sometimes I think that that's the only way I can make sure that he's safe, you know?" I nodded. "Even though I know I can't lock him up, sometimes it's all I want to do. Maria can be the same."

"I can't even imagine." I sighed, looking out the window. I looked down at my hand, raising an eyebrow at Jasper as he slipped his hand into my own, lacing our fingers over the console. He smiled at me, wiggling his eyebrows at me and I chuckled, shaking my head, looking back out the window, leaving my hand where it was. I knew that it wouldn't be approved if we were seen as being together. One of us would probably have to transfer to another unit. They couldn't stop us from being together if we wanted to be but they could make life difficult for us.

"Is this okay?" He asked quietly, giving my hand a quick squeeze and I smiled, nodding.

"If it wasn't my hand wouldn't still be there." I whispered and his answering smile was bright. I felt a swell of pride at knowing that I had put it there. "How are we going to do this?" I asked quietly and he glanced at me again, confused. I squeezed his hand again and comprehension dawned on him.

"Well, I was thinking we could go out on some dates and maybe make out a little and see where it takes us." He grinned, winking at me and I chuckled, shaking my head at him.

"You know that's not what I mean." I sighed and he laughed.

"I know." He sighed, turning off into the parking lot of the police station. "We can just take it as it comes." He looked down at our hands, running his thumbs over my knuckles gently. "I really like you, Edward. I want to see where this goes."

"Me too." I whispered, wanting to kiss him but restrained upon seeing Victoria and Tanya pulling into the parking lot behind us. I pulled my hand away, seeing Jasper's face fall. "I want to be with you, Jasper, but I don't think the beginning of a case is the best time for us to come out with a new relationship to the team." He nodded, slowly, climbing out of the car while I packed the files up.

"Come on, boys!" I heard Tanya calling at Jasper, laughing along with Victoria.

"Edward didn't think to put the files away before we stopped." Jasper shot back and I felt my cheeks heat up as I shot Jasper a look as I climbed out of the car. "What? It's true." He laughed as he reached into the backseat of the car, grabbing what he needed.

I flipped him off, laughing as I walked into the station, closely followed by the others.

The four of us quickly split up, Tanya heading towards the police chief and the rest of us heading towards the three boards that had been set up for each individual victim. We could see that the police force had been efficient in their gathering of evidence.

Unfortunately, it hadn't done any good.

Three children were dead and they had no actual leads an unsub. They were no closer to finding the person responsible than they had been after the first child had been taken and I could see that it was wearing on the officers.

"Help!" We all turned to see a frantic woman come running into the station, holding a small child. "Please, Annie didn't come home from school today." She was completely distraught and we looked at each other. I made my way over to the woman along with Victoria. She managed to persuade the woman to give her the toddler and I gestured for her to sit down. I requested that one of the officers get her something to drink, asking her if she wanted some tea. She looked at me, clearly wondering what was going on, why I was offering her tea when she'd just said that her child was missing.

"Alright, my name is Special Agent Edward Cullen. I'm with the Behavioural Analysis Unit with the FBI. I need to you tell me what happened?"

She nodded, taking a breath and looking over at her little boy, who Victoria was keeping entertained. That woman would make an amazing mother someday soon. "Ever since all of this started, I've kept a close eye on the both of them. Always making sure that they were both within someone's sight. It's usually only when Annie's at school that I'm not with her. She hates it but I think she understands why I've been so worried. She gets home from school at three thirty every day but today she didn't. We carpooled with some neighbours down the street and when it was their turn, she walked from their house. They only live three doors down so we figured she'd be safe. But I looked out of the front door and saw their car parked in their driveway. Annie still hadn't come home so I went to see if she was still at their house. They said that she had gotten out and walked back to the house. But she didn't. She didn't come home. How could something happen between our houses without someone seeing anything."

"Hey, I know it's hard but you need to calm down, okay." I tried to get her to calm down and she looked at me wide-eyed. "There's a chance that someone saw something, so we're going to get agents down to your street. Is there someone at your house in case Annie does go home?" I asked and she nodded.

"Yeah, one of my neighbours is at my house in case she comes home. If she does, they're going to call me but I didn't want to wait. I didn't want to leave it any longer in case something has happened to her. Please. Find my baby."

"We'll do our best." I said quietly and she nodded slowly. It was bad to promise that we would find someone. We could never promise that we would. It could never end well if we did that.

We got the woman's information and Jasper was immediately on the phone to Garrett, informing him of the new development. We were going to have to step up the investigation.

"He's stepped up his schedule." I muttered, standing in front of the board for the latest victim as Jasper walked over to stand next to me.

"Maybe he knows that the feds have been called in and is running out of time," he suggested and I hummed, thinking of it as a possibility. "Maybe he's just starting to lose control." Another possibility.

There was never any real way we could tell why someone did something. We knew what kind of person would commit these kinds of crimes but we could never really know the reasons behind it until we were able to get them in an interview room.

This was going to be a long case.

We all made our way towards the woman's address. She had gone in the same car with Victoria and Tanya, something we felt might be best in trying to keep her calm. Not sure how well it was working though.

There were several people out on the street, clearly wondering what was going on. Jasper and I looked at each other, nodding as we climbed out of the car and heading in different directions. He took the houses on the same side of the street while I headed to the other side.

"Hi, there." I smiled at a couple of the people standing on the sidewalk, watching what was going on. "I'm Special Agent Cullen with the FBI. I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions."

"What's going on?" One of the women asked me, staring at me with wide eyed. "Has another child gone missing?"

"We believe that might be the case." The three of them gasped, looking at each other. "Can I ask where the three of you were at around three thirty this afternoon?"

"With the kids." The woman in front of me answered, looking slightly offended. "The three of us always go round one of our houses when the kids get home. Even before all of this started happening. You don't think that we were involved do you?"

"We just have to ask." I held up a hand, trying to get her to calm down. "Can I ask if you saw anything around that time? Any vehicles you didn't recognise going up and down the street, any people you didn't recognise hanging around?"

"No," they all shook their heads, looking slightly scared. "I mean, we had them out in the backyard. Out there, we know where they all are. They're getting fed up with always being watched but I think part of them understands that they're not to be on their own recently."

I nodded, understanding where their fear was coming from. "Well, if you remember anything, anything at all, even if it seems like it could be nothing, give me a call." I handed them one of my cards before moving on to the next house and repeating my questions.

It was about an hour later when I met up with the others in the team.

"Anything?" Jasper asked and I shook my head. "Me neither."

"No one on this street saw anything. Or if they did, they're not saying or thought that it wasn't enough to be worth mentioning." I let out a sigh, leaning on one of the cars, closing my eyes. "There has to be someone here who saw something."

"This doesn't look like a street where something goes unnoticed under normal circumstances. And when something like this happens, there has to be someone here that saw something." Jake was right. This was a cookie cutter neighbourhood where everything that happened was known.

"We've got the whole street cordoned off." Garrett advised, walking over to us. "We've got officers stationed at both ends of the street. They're going to be ID-ing and searching the vehicles of everyone that comes and goes from the street. No one is getting in or out unchecked."

"She's got to be around here somewhere," Jasper sighed, looking around at the people on the street. "There was no way that someone was able to get a child off of the street, into a car or whatever and get away without someone seeing something."

We all nodded, glancing around, making sure that none of the residents of the street were able to understand what we were saying or doing. We didn't want them to believe that they were under suspicion. Even though the kind of were.

We stayed on the street until it started to get dark, putting out an amber alert for Annie, making sure that all roads in and out of Columbus had highway patrol stops on them, checking the vehicles and asking peoples reasoning for being on the roads. There was a high police presence on the street and I knew there would be until the little girl was found, dead or alive.

I hoped it was the latter.

It was eleven thirty before we reached the hotel and all of us were dead on our feet. I had to resist rolling my eyes when I found out that Jasper and I were once again sharing a room. I could have sworn that he was orchestrating it that way.

Not that I minded.

We walked into the room and I dumped my bag on my bed, sitting down and running my hands through my hair.

"Hey," I looked up to see Jasper standing in front of me, holding out a hand. "Come here."

I took his hand, letting him pull me up. He immediately wrapped his arms around my waist, looking at me closely. "You okay?"

I sighed, resting my head on his shoulder, closing my eyes. "I don't know." I whispered and he held me tighter. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and I felt him smile against my cheek. I leaned back, looking at him. He pressed his lips to mine gently and I sighed gently, relaxing into him a little more.

"I've been waiting all day to do that." He whispered against my lips and I pulled away from him. "Don't worry, I haven't been thinking about it all day. I've had my mind on the case but since being in the car with you this morning, I just wanted to kiss you. You looked so . . . pained . . . I'm not sure if that's the right word but it works," I smiled as he chuckled, shaking his head, "I just wanted to take it away."

"Well, you're working towards it." I smiled and he took that as an invitation to kiss me again. We stood like that for a few moments, the kiss slow and languid, no urgency to it at all. I pulled away, resting my forehead against his and he looked at me, worry etched on his face. I could see he was wondering what was wrong and I bit my lip.

"What's the matter?" He asked, his voice soft as he ran his hands up and down my arms.

"It just feels wrong, you know?" His brow furrowed before comprehension dawned on his face. "It just feels wrong to be in here, doing _this_ while a little girl is out there, possibly dead or at least suffering in some way and we're in here, warm and safe and . . ."

"Hey," he slid a finger under my chin, pulling my head up so I had to look at him. "We'll find her, okay? I can't promise that it will be a happy ending but we will find her. There's nothing that we can do right now and believe me, I wish that we could be out there searching for her as well. But the local police are on it. They had volunteers from the area, who _know_ the area. We don't know the area. We'd all probably end up getting lost and they'd have to come and find us instead." I couldn't help the small smile that flitted across my lips. He wasn't lying. It had happened before on other cases. "Until the sun comes up, there's nothing that _we _personally can do. We'll head out with them in the morning, okay?"

I knew he had a point. We didn't know the area and I didn't know how much use we could be when it came to the actual search for Annie. We would be notified immediately if they found her in either condition and we would be ready to head out but standing there, with Jasper, in our hotel room, I didn't feel like we were doing enough.

Like _I_ was doing enough.

I'd been here before and I didn't want to relive any of it.

"Hey, what's wrong?" He asked and I shook my head, taking a shaky breath. "This is bringing back memories for you, isn't it?" I looked up at him, shock clear in my expression. "It's clear that something like this has happened before. It's okay to be upset. Cases involving kids gets to everyone. It's okay to let your guard down when it's just us."

"No, no it's not, Jasper." I pushed away from him but he wrapped his arms around me tighter, holding me to him. "It's not okay. How am I supposed to be able to hold it together long enough to find her? To find the bastard that is doing this to these children."

"By knowing that it's okay for you to let it out when you're in here." He sighed, resting his cheek against the side of my head. "You can hold it together because you know that you can let it all out when you're in here. You can't hold it all in all the time. It's too much. You do that and you'll explode like a pressure cooker." I looked up at him, knowing that he was right. "Trust me, I'm going to be doing the same thing."

"Really?" I doubted him. He was so laid back about everything. I couldn't imagine him breaking down about anything. He must do about some things though. I mean, he was human, after all.

"Of course." He smiled, pressing his lips to my forehead gently. "How about this, you can cry on my shoulders if I can cry on yours." He smirked and I smiled up at him.

"I think we can arrange that." I said softly, leaning up and pressing my lips to his again, pleased with myself as he responded immediately.

These were the cases that tested you as an agent. The last case we'd worked when it came to children being murdered had nearly broken both Jake and I. But in the end, it had made the both of us stronger and I knew that I had to be stronger in myself to get through this one.

I would take Jasper's advice. I would keep myself calm while we were working, out with the local PD and families, letting it out in private if I needed to.

Maybe that was how Jasper coped.

We stood there, not saying anything as I rested my head on his shoulder and he rested his against the side of my head. There was nothing but us in that moment.

And part of me wanted it to stay that way.

. . . . . . . . . .

**Now, don't go thinking that Edward's a wimp. Working any kind of murder case is hard but when it comes to murder cases concerning children, it could crack even the most hardened law enforcement officers. You'll be finding out why Edward is so affected soon.**


	14. Chapter 14

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

_**Edward**_

It was Friday morning and we were still no closer to finding out who was harming these children. We had found Annie two days after she'd gone missing in a wooded area near her house.

One of the worst things about working cases with children was having to explain to their parents that their little boy or girl wouldn't be coming home. The agonising cries of the parents would always haunt me and I felt powerless to do anything to help.

There was no real way of telling what would happen between the two of them now. They would grieve but you could never tell if it would be together or separately. Some parents grieved together, putting on a united front and facing everything together but others couldn't handle being together anymore and split up, their relationship crumbling with their grief.

"Hey," I turned to see Jasper walking into the small conference room the local PD had with two cups of Starbucks coffee. "How you doing?" He asked, sitting down in front of me, pushing one of the cups towards me. I took it, giving him an appreciative smile. I took a sip, smiling when I tasted the vanilla in the drink.

"You remembered?"

"Of course." He smirked, taking a sip of his own drink. "How could I forget the drink of the only other person that doesn't drink it black?" I grinned, remembering the first day we'd actually met. "How are you doing?" He asked again and I sighed, shaking my head.

"I want to get this guy. I want to find this guy and find out what the hell's going on with this fucker." I took another drinking, not caring as the hot liquid scalded the inside of my mouth.

"Hey, we'll get him." He said softly, his hand twitching before he grasped his cup before lifting it to his lips.

"We can't guarantee that." I sighed and he nodded.

We both knew that there was no guaranteed chance that we were going to catch the unsub. It was something we risked with every investigation. They could get spooked and stop while we're here or pick up and leave before starting up somewhere else.

We had to make sure that he hadn't headed out of town. If he crossed state lines, he could disappear. We had to catch him before any more children went missing.

"We got results back on a spot of blood the CSI's found near where Annie James's body was found. They ran a DNA on it and turns out, it's male." We both looked up at Victoria as she walked into the room with a file in her hands.

"Well, that narrows it down to half the population of Columbus." I put my coffee down, running my hands through my hand.

"They're running it through CODIS now." She sighed, sitting down next to Jasper.

"But that only helps if the guy has a record." The two of them nodded, not saying anything. Nothing needed to be said. We weren't getting anywhere with the evidence. We needed to get back out onto the street where she disappeared. I said as much to the other two and they nodded. Jasper stood up as Garrett called me, nodding as he walked out of the room. "Fancy taking a drive?" I asked Victoria and she smiled at me, nodding.

I knew that this case had to be hitting hard on Victoria as well, possibly more than the rest of us. She had a little girl around the same age as all of the children that had gone missing. I knew that she had been calling home to talk to her more often than she did when she was on a case. I think it was to ease her own mind, letting herself know that her baby was safe.

"How are you holding up?" I asked as I pulled the car out of the station parking lot and turned in the direction of the street.

"It's hard." She sighed, looking out of the window. "It just . . . it's hard. I just keep thinking that . . ."

"I know." I whispered, glancing at her. She gave me a smile before she turned back to look out the window. We spent the rest of the drive in silence and I parked at the end of the street. "You take this side, I'll take that side?" I suggested and she nodded and we both climbed out of the car. I sighed, making my way over to the first house on the street.

I knocked on the door, waiting for someone to come to the door. I turned back to it as someone opened the door, a grumpy looking teenager, standing there staring at me. "Hi, your parents' home?"

"Who want to know?" He stood there, crossing his arms, clearly challenging me. I raised an eyebrow at him before pulling out my badge and showing it to him. "FBI. Your parents' home?"

"Mom!" He called, looking at my badge with wide eyes. I heard more footsteps from behind him and a slightly frazzled looking woman came to the door, looking at me.

"Can I help you?" She asked, wiping her hands on an apron she was wearing. "I mean, if you're selling something or trying to get us to sign up to something, we're not interested and-"

"I'm not selling or anything like that." I gave her a small smile, showing her my badge, just as I had my son. "I'm Special Agent Cullen with the FBI. Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions about what happened here the other day?"

"About Annie?" She took a deep breath, blinking back tears. "What would you like to know?"

"Did you notice anything different about that day?" I asked, putting my badge back into my pocket. "Anyone you didn't recognise? A vehicle you hadn't seen before? Absolutely anything?"

She thought for a moment, still wiping her hands. She obviously didn't realise that they were already clean. "No. I'm sorry but . . . there wasn't anything different. After everything that had been happening, we'd started keeping a closer eye on who came and went from the street. We still try to, you know, especially around school time, you know?" I nodded. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay, we're just trying to see if someone along here saw something. It's okay if you didn't but if you do remember, absolutely anything at all, no matter if it seems like it could be nothing, give the station a call." She nodded, giving me a watery smile.

I went through the same routine with the next six houses, all of them saying almost the same thing. They hadn't noticed anyone or anything different on the street at the time. They hadn't seen anything that could help us. I looked at Victoria, who appeared to be having the same kind of luck as me.

None.

Good thing we weren't in Vegas right now. I would not be any good in a casino.

I knocked on the next house, surprised when a little boy answered the door.

"Adrian!" A panicked voice behind him called out and I noted that apparently, the little boy hadn't been given permission to open the door. "How many times, you don't open the door without me or your Dad with you."

"Sorry, Mom." I could hear the exasperation in his voice.

"Can I help you?" She asked, stepping in front of her son.

"Yeah, I'm Special Agent Cullen with the FBI." I showed her my badge and her expression relaxed a little. "We're just going up and down the street trying to find out if anyone saw anything the day that Annie went missing. Whether there was anything or anyone different on the street, if anyone saw Annie talking to someone when she was walking from her neighbours house back to her home?"

"I don't remember. I'm sorry." She shook her head, looking upset.

"I saw her." The little boy piped up and we both looked at him. "She was walking down the street."

I looked up at his mother who looked back at me. "Do you mind if I come in?" She nodded, opening up the door wider and I stepped inside. "Thank you, Mrs . . ."

"Grassier. Would you like anything to drink?" I shook my head, giving her a small smile. "Through to the living room."

I followed her and her son through to the living room, sitting down on the sofa she indicated. She sat next to her son, smiling down at him.

"Hey, Adrian, is it?" I asked, remembering her calling his name when he opened the door and he nodded. "You said that you saw Annie when she was walking back home?" He nodded back again. "Where was she?"

"Umm . . . she was in between her house and Mrs Taylor's. Mrs Taylor takes her to school and brings her home sometimes. Other times her mom takes Robbie and Sarah."

"Was there anyone else with her?" I asked, looking up at his mom, not wanting to upset her any more than she seemed to be already.

"I was getting some water when I saw her." He shrugged and I gave him a small smile.

"May I?" I gestured towards the kitchen and she nodded. I stood up and walked through to the kitchen, standing in front of the sink. I knelt down so that I was around Adrian's height and determined that he could still see out of the window clearly. He would have seen Annie as she walked past and anyone that might have been with her. "Did you see anyone with Annie when she was walking home from Mrs Taylor's?"

"Just Michael."

"Michael?" I looked to his mother.

"Michael Roper. He and his father live on the end of the street. His mother passed away a couple of years ago. Cancer." I nodded, knowing how much cancer could affect not just the patient but everyone around them as well.

"What number?" I asked, pulling out my phone.

"2109." She said softly and I nodded, quietly thanking her before letting her know that if she or Adrian remembered anything to get in contact with the police department.

I walked out of the house, calling Victoria. She picked up almost instantly. "I found someone that was with Annie just before she disappeared." We met up on the street outside the house that she had just been in. "Little boy, Michael Roper was seen with Annie just before she disappeared. He lives in a house at the end of the street with his father."

"Let's go." She nodded and we walked towards the end of the street. We made our way up the driveway before walking up onto the porch and knocking on the door. "Car's in the driveway. Someone's home." I nodded, looking at the door as it opened.

"Can I help you?" The man at the door wasn't anything to really look at. He was thin, wiry, no real build to speak of. His hair was slicked back and he looked like he'd just stepped out of the shower. Surprising for four o'clock on a Friday afternoon.

"Special Agents Jordan and Cullen. We're with the FBI. May we come in?" We both held up our badges and he stepped back, letting us into the house. "Is Michael around at all, Mr Roper?" He looked surprised that we knew his name. He really shouldn't, should he?

"Is everything okay?" He asked, walking to the stairs and calling for his son. "What's going on?"

"We just need to ask Michael a couple of questions." I gave him a small smile, watching as who I guessed was Michael walking down the stairs. He stopped as he saw Victoria and me standing at the bottom of the stairs.

"Do I have to go?"

"No, you can stay." I nodded and he breathed a sigh. I could have sworn that there was relief in that little sigh. "Hi, Michael. We need to ask you a couple of questions."

He looked over to his dad, who nodded and he walked down the last couple of steps, walking into what I guessed was the living room. We all followed him through and sat down in various seats. His dad stood behind him.

"Michael, someone told us that you saw Annie just before she disappeared," I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "Do you remember what happened?"

"Um . . . I saw her when she was walking to her house. She looked upset so I asked her if she was alright." He shrugged as though this was run of the mill.

"What were _you_ doing walking around on your own?" Victoria asked and he looked towards her.

"I had to go and get something from Adrian's house." He said quietly and I looked at Victoria.

"Did you see Annie on your way back?" I asked and he shook his head. "Was there anyone else around while you were outside?" He shook his head again. "Alright. That's all for now but we might need to come and talk to you again."

"Will you really need to talk to him again?" His father asked, walking with us to the door.

"Mr Roper, Michael was the last person to see Annie before she disappeared. There could be something in that." He sighed, nodding again. "We'll be in touch if we need to talk to him again."

We walked out of the house and down the street towards the car. We didn't say anything as we walked down the street.

We climbed into the car and I started the engine. "So what did the first kid say?"

"That's what's confusing me." I muttered and she looked at me, clearly confused. "The kid that told me that he'd seen Michael with Annie, was Adrian." Her eyes widened a little at my words. "We're missing something here." I turned off the engine, pulling the keys out, quickly. "I'll be right back."

I opened the door, quickly crossing the street and making my way towards the house where Adrian lived. I knocked on the door quickly and it was opened almost instantly by his mother.

"Hi, again, just quickly, did Michael Roper come round to the house on Monday afternoon?" I asked and she looked at me confused.

"No," she shook her head, her eyes widening. "No, he didn't."

"Alright." I nodded, turning away from her. "Thank you."

"Okay."

I turned and made my way back towards the car, smiling at the confusion that was etched onto Victoria's face.

"What was that about?" She asked as I climbed into the car. "Edward?"

"Michael Roper was lying." I stated simply, looking over at her as I turned the engine on again. "He didn't go to the Grassier's that afternoon. We were duped by a ten year old."

"What do you want to do?" She asked as we made our way back to the station. That was the million dollar question. What do we do?

"Let the rest of the team know and find out where they want to take it from there. " I shrugged and she nodded, looking back out the window. "We need to find out who this was. Adrian, the little boy said that he saw Michael talking to Annie out his window and Annie went missing just after that."

"Not much of a time frame. They had to be quick." She nodded and I let out a breath.

We made it back to the station quickly, making our way inside. We called the team into the small conference room I'd been in this morning before heading out with Victoria. Victoria closed the door and I knew that was probably the best idea. The local PD might feel like we were isolating ourselves, freezing them out but we didn't want them to know that we were suspecting a child of withholding evidence from us. We didn't know how well that would go down and we weren't going to risk it until we knew for sure what actually happened to Annie.

We told them what we'd done, canvassing the neighbourhood again, going from door to door, asking if there was anything that people might have seen that they didn't think was important. I told them what I'd learned at the Grassier's house and how we'd then gone to see the Roper's afterwards. I then told them about how I'd asked Mrs Grassier if Michael had actually come to their house that afternoon and her subsequent answer.

"So the kid was lying about going there?" Jake asked and we nodded stating that we thought so. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know." I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Maybe he thought that he'd get in trouble."

"Or he could have seen something he wasn't supposed to and didn't want anyone else to find out." Jasper suggested, shrugging lightly. "Fear is a powerful motivator."

"We don't know why the kid lied, all we know is that he did. I don't think it's a good idea to head back there tonight, I mean, we could overwhelm him and that could cause him and the dad to get defensive on us and we don't want that." We looked at Garrett, nodding.

"Let it rest for tonight and head back out there first thing in the morning?" I asked and Garrett nodded, flipping through the files.

"Make sure you get there before they have a chance to take off for the day. We want to get to them as quickly as possible." We all nodded. "Who wants to be the one to tell them?" Garrett nodded towards the window and we all glanced towards them to see the PD's officers trying to look busy but clearly trying to figure out what we were doing in here.

"I will." I sighed, taking one for the team. "I won't be telling them anything other than the fact that we have two witnesses who saw Annie before she disappeared. Not going to say anything about him withholding information or anything like that."

They all nodded and we all stood up, gathering our files and making our way out of the room.

"What's going on?" As if he could tell that it had been decided that I was the one that was going to divulge the information, the Police Chief walked over to me.

"We've got two witnesses that saw someone talking to Annie just before she disappeared. They're both children. We're going back out to talk to them in the morning." He seemed satisfied with that answer as he nodded and walked back towards his men.

"Well, that went better than expected." Jasper chuckled and I shook my head.

"How did they know that I was the one that got stuck with telling them what was going on?" He looked at me, confused and I laughed. "He just like . . . gravitated towards me. How did he know it was me?"

"Maybe he likes you." He laughed and I mimicked gagging, making him laugh even more. I couldn't help but smile. "Why do you think the kid lied to you?" He asked and I shook my head, not knowing why he thought that lying to us by saying he'd gone to Adrian's house would be a good idea. Even at ten years old he had to know that we would find out he was lying. Was he scared of something? Did he think he was going to get in trouble for telling us what he knew? Maybe he saw who took Annie and was afraid of being next if he talked.

Wouldn't know until we talked to him.

"I don't know." I sighed, looking over at him. "But I'm going to find out."

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

**So, why do you think the little boy lied?**

**Theories?**


	15. Chapter 15

_**Disclaimer: Not Stephenie Meyer and to be safe, I'm not Jeff Davis either. If was, I'd be thinking up ideas for a new series of Criminal Minds, rather than taking his characters qualities, putting them into Twilight characters and twisting them around for my pleasure.**_

**You all seem pretty sure about what's going on. Will you be so sure at the end of this chapter? Let's see, shall we?**

_**Edward**_

First thing in the morning, Jasper and I headed back over to the Roper household. We arrived there just after eight in the morning. I doubted that the two of them would have left for anything they had planned yet and our theory was confirmed when we saw that Mr Roper's car was still in the driveway.

We parked on the street, blocking his driveway, on the off chance that he was out back and saw us coming and then tried to make a run for it.

What?

It had happened before.

We quickly walked up the driveway, knocking on the door. We looked at each other, knowing that we had to somehow get Michael away from his father. We'd come to the conclusion that it could be the fact that his father was in the room when we were talking to him.

We'd come to the decision that I would talk to Michael while Jasper would talk to his father. It would be easier for Michael if someone he knew spoke to him. He hadn't met Jasper before but he'd spoken to me yesterday. It might make him open up a little more if he spoke to someone that he had spoken to before.

We were greeted by a bleary eyed Mr Roper, rubbing his eyes, clearly wondering who the hell was at his door at a little after eight on a Saturday morning.

"Mr Roper!" Jasper greeted in an overly cheerful voice and I had to hold back a snort at his demeanour. "How are you this morning?"

"Um . . ." I smiled at his confusion, knowing that he didn't have a clue why we were here.

"We need to speak to Michael again, Mr Roper." I cut in, making Jasper scowl at me for cutting off his little game. I shook my head at him, barely able to hold back rolling my eyes.

"Why?"

"Because we have some questions that need answering and he's the only one that can answer them for us." I gave him a courteous smile. "We should have no problem getting a warrant but we really don't want to have to do that just to ask him some questions."

He looked between the two of us before stepping back and letting us in. We nodded at him, walking past him and towards where we could hear what sounded like cartoons coming from somewhere in the house. We looked at each other, following the noise through into the living room.

"Dad, can I have some-" Michael stopped as he turned around and saw us standing there. He looked behind us to see his dad standing behind us. "What's going on?"

"We just need to talk to you for a little bit." I gave him a small smile and he looked at his dad for a moment before sitting down on the sofa again.

"Mr Roper, I need to ask you a couple of questions." Jasper said quietly, gesturing towards the kitchen. He glanced at his son quickly before looking back to Jasper. "He'll be fine. It's just for a minute." He looked at me again before following Jasper into the kitchen.

"Michael, hey," I sat down on the chair next to the sofa that Michael was sitting on. He didn't look at me, focusing on the TV. "Michael?" Still nothing. I reached forward, grabbing the remote from the coffee table and pressing the power button, turning the TV off.

"Hey!" Well, that worked.

"Glad to see I now have your attention." I raised an eyebrow at him and he huffed, sitting back on the sofa, crossing his arms and not looking at me. "Michael, I need to talk to you. About what we talked about yesterday."

"I _told_ you everything I remember."

"I don't think you did." He glared at me in the most menacing way a ten year old could. Not really that menacing but got to give him props for trying. "Now, tell me," I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, "tell me exactly what you saw the day Annie went missing."

"I already told you." He huffed and I sighed.

"Michael, we know that you didn't go to Adrian's house on Wednesday." He looked over towards me and I sat there, holding eye contact with him. "We spoke to his mom and she said she didn't see you. You didn't go to his house that day. How come you told us that you did?" He shrugged and I sighed, running a hand through my hair. "Michael, you understand how serious this is, right?" He shrugged again. "Four kids are dead. And we don't know who did it. We're trying to find out but we need your help to do that? Now, why did you lie to us?"

"Because."

This was like pulling teeth. I had hoped that without his father in the room, he would open up a bit more. Apparently that wasn't the case.

"Michael, if you don't help us, someone else could get hurt. One of your friends, maybe. You don't want them to get hurt, do you?" I knew it was low and harsh but I had to try and get this kid to open up. What I was saying was true. If we couldn't get him to tell us what he might have seen, we could have another dead child soon.

That was something I was going to try to avoid.

He looked at me, shaking his head and I nodded. "I didn't see anything." He muttered, looking down at his feet that were hanging in the air, his legs not long enough to reach the floor.

"Tell me what you did see."

"I was walking along the street and I saw Annie. I asked her if she was okay and she told me that she was walking back to her house." He glanced over at me, a slight pink hue appearing on his cheek and I wondered what that was about. "I um, I asked if she wanted me to . . ." he mumbled the rest so that I couldn't hear him.

"What was that? You asked her what?"

"If she wanted me to walk her home?" Oh. I smiled, realising what the little blush was about. Someone liked Annie and didn't want anyone to know that. Of course, at ten years old, girls had cooties and were something you had to avoid at all costs.

Of course, there are some of us that never really grow out of that.

"What did she say to that?" I asked, not bringing attention to the embarrassment over his crush on Annie, moving on with his story.

He shook his head, looking at me. "She told me she didn't need me to. That her house was just there." I nodded, realising that girls probably wanted to avoid boys as well at that age. "So I said bye and walked off."

"Anything else?" I asked and he shook his head.

"I turned around to look at her but she was gone. I thought she'd gone into her house." He shrugged and I could understand why he'd thought that. It made sense to think that she had gone into her house. It was just up the street after all.

"Were there any other people around?" I asked and he shook his head. "Any cars going past?"

He thought for a moment, biting his lip. "A blue car went past as I was walking away. It was dark blue."

"Did you recognise it?" I asked and he shook his head again. "Michael, we know that you didn't go to Adrian's house. Where were you going? Why were you walking on your own when you knew that someone was hurting kids?"

"My dad's been driving me crazy." He moaned and I chuckled gently. "I wanted to be away from him for a while."

"You know how dangerous that could have been, right?" He shrugged again and I realised that to a ten year old, apparently, it wasn't a big deal. His father needed to keep a closer eye on his son. "Okay."

I stood up, walking towards the kitchen and nodding my head towards the door, signalling to Jasper that we were done. He gave Mr Roper a parting smile before following me out of the door. We walking in silence back to the car, knowing that anything we said could be overheard by people that might be behind their hedges doing whatever. People were more vigilant now and we could see people at their windows watching us. We knew that they wouldn't be wondering about our presence, having seen us before.

Sometimes, being one of the investigators had its perks.

We climbed into the car and I sighed, running a hand through my hair.

"You okay?" Jasper asked and I shook my head.

"He says he didn't see what happened." I sighed, turning the engine on and pulling away from the curb. "But he said that he saw a blue car. He didn't recognise it. Didn't seem to care that there was a chance that it could have been him rather than Annie."

We took the drive back to the station in silence, both of us lost in our own thoughts. As we turned off the street, Jasper's hand drew me out of my thoughts, wrapping his fingers around mine. I glanced at him, smiling and his answering smile was all I needed.

If only it wasn't in the confines of the car or in our hotel room. I didn't want to keep this from the team but we knew that if our superiors found out, even though they couldn't force us apart, they could make things difficult for us.

I liked Jasper and I didn't want to hide that fact. But until we could work something out, it was what we had to do. We would work it out. We had to. I wanted to see where it could go with Jasper and I didn't want to have to hide like it was some kind of dirty secret.

We had to work this out.

I gave his hand a squeeze before we exited the car, walking into the station and straight through to the conference room. The rest of the team were in there and the Chief of Police and his deputies followed the two of us.

"Get anything from the kid?" Garrett asked, not looking up from the papers he was looking at.

"Only that he saw a blue car when he left Annie. Didn't recognise it or anything. He turned around and saw that she was gone but thought that she'd gone into her house." I sighed, flopping down into one of the chairs. A cup of coffee appeared in front of me and I looked up to see Tanya smiling down at me softly. It wasn't what I usually like but it was better than nothing. "Thanks." She nodded in response, handing another one to Jasper. "So basically, we have nothing. Or at least, very little more than nothing."

"Are there any other reports of a blue car driving down that street at that time?" Garrett asked, looking around at us. We grabbed the notebooks we'd all had on the days we'd questioned the people living on the street, sifting through them to try and find any mention of a blue car.

No one other than Michael had mentioned the blue car but then again, only Adrian had mentioned seeing Michael outside with Annie, so it was possible that no one had seen it. But then again, when there were so many worried parents on one street and only one child sees this car, I had to wonder, was he lying to us again.

"What is it?" Jake asked and I looked over to him and found that everyone was looking at me. "You're thinking something."

"Always am, Jake." I smirked and he rolled his eyes trying not to smile. "I just . . . I have a feeling that this little boy might not be telling us the truth. Again."

"Why do you say that?" Tanya sat down next to Jake, her brow furrowed.

"Because no one else mentioned a blue car. One that they knew or one that they didn't. No one else saw any vehicle going up or down that street, which isn't strange, considering that apart from one couple, all of them have kids. I don't know." I leaned back in my chair, running a hand through my hair again. "There's just something that doesn't add up."

"You don't think the kids covering for someone, do you?" Victoria asked and I shook my head, shrugging.

"I don't know. But I can't be the only one that feels that something's not right."

"You're right." Jake leaned forward, resting his head in his hands before looking up at us, clasping his hands in front of him on the table. "Edward's right. There's something that doesn't make sense about all of this."

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way." Jasper suggested, sitting down next to me. His knee touched mine gently and I had to fight not to smile. To anyone else in the room it might look just as though there wasn't enough room at the table for both of us but to me it told me that he was there. He was behind me. Thankful that the table wasn't a glass top, I quickly pressed my knee against his, letting him know that I knew he was there.

"What do you mean?" Garrett was watching the two of us, clearly wondering what we were on to.

"Maybe instead of focusing on _him_, we should focus on the children."

"Victimology." I sighed, nodding along with Jasper's idea. "He's right. Most children have select activities that they get into. After school activities, sports, things like that. If we can find out if they were linked in any way, we'd be able to narrow down the suspect pool."

"That's a good idea." Garrett nodded. "Right, we need to speak to the families. Find out what the children were involved in and get Bree to get a list of everyone involved in those activities."

We all nodded, everyone suddenly in motion. It was decided that we would all split up, Jake, Garrett and Victoria heading out to speak to the victims' families. Garrett would be going to speak to two of the families, considering they lived on the same street. From a gathering of information point of view, it made more sense. Jasper would get the local PD up to speed with the route we were taking and make sure that they were ready to go when we had it narrowed down. _If _we could narrow it down. It had been determined that because I was staying at the station, the others would contact me with the information that they found out about the children and then I could relay that to Bree.

I continued to thumb through the files that detailed the victims, shaking my head as I read what had been done to the children.

They had all been bludgeoned to death. Blunt force trauma was the official cause of death given by the ME. There was no sexual assault on the children, which in this type of crime was unusual. When someone took children, the majority of the time, there was some kind of release for the unsub but there was no evidence of that at all.

This case was making my head spin.

The others started to send me messages letting me know what the victims were involved in. Two of them weren't involved in any activities, after school or otherwise.

I called Bree, getting her to gather lists of the students in each of the victims classes and Jake and Garrett would be heading to the baseball field where one of the victims played Little League and to the soccer field where another one of them played on the weekends.

Everyone quickly convened back in the conference room, lists of the members of the sports teams and Bree had sent through the class lists that she had found. We each had a print out, combing through them, trying to find any links between the children, the parents and the staff that came into contact with them.

I a copy of the lists of the children's names in front of me, as did Jake. Victoria and Jasper were going through the parents and Tanya and Garrett were going through the members of staff. I felt my brow furrowing as I grabbed a highlighter, noticing one common name appearing on the sheets of paper in front of me.

"What you found?" I looked up, seeing Jake looking at me. "You've got your 'I've found something that doesn't make sense' face on."

"Look careful at your lists Jake and tell me if there's someone on each and every one of them." He looked down, his eyes scanning the lists as comprehension dawns on his face. "You see it?"

"See what?" We had the attention of everyone.

"Right, with the school classes, each grade is pretty much too big so it's split into two different classes. Now, only two of the victims were in the fourth grade, both of them being ten. One of them had just turned nine so he was in the third grade below the other two and the fourth was only seven, meaning that he was in first."

"So while they all went to the same school, only two of them were in the same grade." Jasper shook his head, looking slightly confused.

"Right but remember what I said about the grades being split because of their size?" They all nodded. "They were in different classes. The only common class," I held out a separate print out of the class list, "was gym. That was the only class where the two sides were combined."

"So that was the only time they came into contact with each other." Tanya said softly.

"Exactly." Jake took over, scanning his lists. "The other two didn't come into contact with each other or any of the other victims at all but they did both play sports."

"So?"

"There's only one common name on _all_ of these lists, bar one side of the fourth grade." I looked at them all, looking at Jake who had seen who I was talking about. "Michael Roper. He was in class with Damien Grey but had gym along with Annie James. Now he wasn't in classes with the other two victims but he did play Little League with Nicholas Brady and was on the soccer team with Robert Johnson. He's the only one that's came into contact with all of the victims."

"Excuse me, agents?" I looked over to see one of the local officers at the door, looking slightly worried. "There's been another attack."

We looked at each other, quickly gathering up what we had and walking out of the room. "Where did it happen?"

"Freemont Street." I looked at the officer. He looked at me sadly, knowing that it was the same street that Annie James had disappeared from.

We quickly made our way to the street, putting on the lights and sirens to make sure that upcoming traffic knew that we were coming and to get out of the way.

Not obeying traffic laws, we arrived at the street, jumping out of the cars and making our way towards where there were several police cruisers parked outside one of the houses. I took a breath, feeling a sickening feeling rising in my stomach.

"Agent Cullen." I turned, hearing Mrs Grassier calling my name. Upon seeing her appearance I knew instantly who it was that had been attacked. "Agent Cullen, they wouldn't let me go with him." She practically collapsed in my arms and I looked at Garrett who nodded at me.

"Come on." I wrapped an arm around her, gently manoeuvring her towards the car I'd just gotten out of. Jasper handed me the keys before making eye contact with me and making his way over to the officers. I helped her into the car and quickly walked around to the drivers' side. "Mrs Grassier-"

"Please," she sniffed, "call me Beth."

"Okay, Beth, you can call me Edward." I took a breath, pulling out of the street and following her directions to the nearest hospital. "What happened?"

"I don't know." She sat there, tears running down her cheeks. "He went out to get something from the car on the driveway and when he didn't come back in . . . I . . . . I went to find out where he was and . . . he was there . . ."

"It's okay. I understand." I sped up, flicking on the sirens as I made my way through the traffic that moved out of the way upon hearing the noise. I turned them off as we pulled into the hospital parking lot. I parked near the entrance, knowing that the Federal plates would stop anyone attempting to put a ticket on the car. We walked into the reception area and I led Beth over to the chairs before making my way up to the desk and asked about Adrian.

The woman behind the desk was dubious about who I was until I showed her my badge and informed her that Beth was his mother. She told me that he was in surgery and let me know that we could head down to the family room down the hallway.

The wait was excruciating but I had to stay with her. I had to know that he was okay. I spoke to Garrett on the phone who told me that they were trying to figure out if anyone had seen anything. I asked him to let me know if they found anything out and I hung up as a doctor came in, asking for Beth. She looked at me, a desperate look on her face. He looked at me and I explained who I was. Unfortunately, I'd been in this situation before and I knew that doctors had to be careful about who they divulged information to. I explained to him that Adrian was the fifth victim in what was happening to these children.

He told us that Adrian, while he wasn't out of the woods, would be okay. We both breathed a sigh of relief at the news and she asked if she could see him. He nodded, making to lead her out of the room.

"Doctor Morgan, can I have a word?" I asked and he nodded, telling Beth that a nurse could take her to her son. She looked at me, knowing that I was going to try and find out some answers that led to whoever had attacked her son. Of course, once he woke up, we would know for certain but I wanted to try and find out beforehand if I could. The more time we lost, the harder it would be to find him.

"What can you tell me about Adrian's injuries?" I asked and he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"There was a lot of blunt force trauma. He had a couple of broken ribs and his arm was shattered. There's a tear in the muscles of his knees and internal bleeding."

"He's going to be okay?" I asked and he nodded. I nodded along, knowing that that would have to be enough for now. "Any head trauma?"

"No," I felt relief at that news.

"Any ideas on the weapon?" I asked and he thought for a moment.

"I can't be sure but there were several bruises on his torso, long, straight. I couldn't tell you what they were." He looked at me, clearly sorry he couldn't be any clearer.

"Long and straight? Like a baseball bat perhaps?" I asked, stiffening.

"Could be."

"Fuck." I cursed quietly before looking at the doctor and apologising. He gave me an understanding smile and I thanked him for his help before making my way out of the hospital, pulling out my phone as I walked, not caring about the dirty looks I was surely getting from the staff.

"Garrett? I know who our unsub is."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

**So, still certain of who it is?**

**I know there's not been much Edward and Jasper in the last couple of chapters but there will be more of the boys bonding coming up soon.**


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